


Catching The Clock

by manda600



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-21 18:37:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7398928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manda600/pseuds/manda600
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their timing was all wrong, but eventually they caught up to it.  The episodes of Season 7 - Season 9 and beyond, as seen through Robin's and Barney's eyes.   Note: This story only recognizes up to the legitimate canon ending in 9.22.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been an on-going work since 2011. The previous chapters (too numerous to repost) can be found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7557930/1/Catching-The-Clock

**2016**

Ted loves hosting house guests Friday evenings.  Along with his Sunday barbeques, it’s become a fairly regular thing with the nine of them, and this Friday – January 12th – is no exception.  But on this particular day, Lily and Marshall with Marvin and Daisy in tow, and Barney and Robin all arrive by the afternoon with plans to stay the night so, at Ted’s request, the entire gang can ride out Blizzard Jonas safe and together out in Westchester. 

 But, unsurprisingly, only Ted himself takes it seriously. 

As Barney quips, “You can’t expect me to feel threatened by a storm named after a brother’s boy band.” 

 “Yeah,” Robin snickers.  “New York’s expecting 5-10 inches of snow?  Big deal.  That’s nothing by Canadian standards.”

 Lily and Marshall soon join in the mockery too.  Even Marvin – now well on his way to being four years old, as he daily reminds them – gets in on the mischief. 

 Tracy does her best to be a supportive wife, but they all pretty much see it as just an excuse to hang out, drink beer, relax and have fun all together in a big house.

 “A big house with plenty of supplies to sustain our group,” Ted prudently points out, if tinged with a touch of good-natured resentment for his keen foresight being taken for granted.

 By Saturday morning at breakfast, however, he’s feeling vindicated.  With the snow now falling at three inches per hour, the others have begun to reconsider.

 “Alright,” Marshall is the first to relent, “snow storms may be old hat in the winters of Minnesota, but I think it’s time to admit this thing is more serious than we thought.”

 Lily nods.  “I’m only worried about Daisy.  I hope we brought enough diapers.”

 “If not, we have plenty of Penny’s,” Tracy offers hopefully.  “I know they don’t wear the same size, but she did just move up to size 4.”

 Lily considers that, deciding, “I think they’ll do in a pinch.”

 “They’re gonna have to, aren’t they?” Barney dryly observes.  Then his eyes widen in alarm and he looks to Robin in a panic.  “And I left my K2r stain remover spray at home!”

 Ted clears his throat conspicuously.  “Fear not.  Your suit will be fine.  Because _I_ stocked the emergency closet with appropriate supplies for all the children.”  He turns to Lily.  “You’ll find an extra case of size 5s in there with Daisy’s name on them.”

 “Really?” Marshall marvels, impressed.  “I guess you thought of everything.”

 Ted stands from his stool, proudly squaring his shoulders.  “Need I remind you I’m a former Boy Scout?  We are _always_ prepared,” he boasts, unwittingly echoing his words of four and half years ago, though the others can never forget with how ridiculous he was being back then. 

 Barney snorts.  “Maybe we can get Ted some hot pink ladies _snow_ boots.”

 Ted protests over Robin’s giggles.  “For the last time, they were not ladies!  Pink was just easier to spot from the rescue chopper!” he insists to Marshall and Lily’s mirth.

 Marvin asks what they’re all laughing about and the next hour is spent regaling him with the tale of Hurricane Irene, the last time they all hunkered down together.  Eventually he gets bored and goes off to play with his sister, but the adults continue telling stories to pass the time while the storm coverage plays in the background.

 

* * *

 

 Just before 1, Ted comes to join the others for lunch in the kitchen, announcing, “Snow totals are up to almost 15 inches in Central Park.”

 “Seriously?” Lily questions, impressed even as a native New Yorker.

 Tracy looks over at her husband’s pleading eyes and sighs, giving in just this once on her ‘No TV at Mealtimes’ rule.  She picks up the remote, handing it to him as she passes by on her way to Penny’s highchair, a canister of Gerber Organic Green Veggie puffs in her other hand.

 Beaming, Ted switches on the small kitchen TV in time to catch a field reporter saying, “ _New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has just announced a travel ban in New York City.  Effective at 2:30 p.m., all city roads will close to civilian traffic, including buses and elevated subways_.

 “Did you hear that?” Ted asks, worked up; perhaps a bit trepidatious but mostly just excited that his predictions were right.

 Robin shakes her head.  “That loser looks like he’s all of seventeen.  Turn it to a _real_ news channel.”

 She gets up and grabs the remote from him, switching it to WWN only to hear a credible colleague inform them, “ _New York City and Long Island are under a travel ban.  All bridges and tunnels into and out of the city will be closed, with only emergency vehicles allowed on the streets_.”

 Barney looks up from his iPhone to add, “Even Broadway’s gone dark.”

 Marshall scratches his chin judiciously.  “Looks like we’ll be spending the entire weekend here.”

 After that Ted obediently puts the TV on mute but continues to watch the subtitle box while the others chit-chat through their meal. 

 “Whoa, guys!” he exclaims suddenly.

 They all look up from their places – Marshall and Marvin perched on stools over at the kitchen island; Tracy feeding Penny where her highchair sits between her two parents; Lily on Tracy’s left with Daisy in a booster chair beside her; and Robin and Barney rounding out the circle, both craning their necks behind them to get a glimpse of the TV.

 “24 to 30 inches are now expected in Central Park,” Ted reports.  “That’s where the city’s official snow records are kept,” he fills them in with his lecturer’s tone, though no one asked.

 “Wow,” Robin acknowledges, “that’s bad even by Vancouver standards.”

 “It’s only the single snowiest blizzard since records began in 1869.  And who predicted it all?” Ted crows.

 “The National Weather Service?” Barney puts in, and Marshall chuckles.

 The guys’ continued jokes and laughter only make Ted more sanctimonious.  “Come tomorrow when you’re all hungry, I’ll expect an apology along with your thanks for having the prudence to expand my disaster backpack into an bunker in the basement.”

 Tracy shakes her head, smiling.  “Ted, no one’s going hungry anyway.  There’s plenty of food still in the fridge.”

 “Wait,” Robin questions Ted’s slip-up.  “I thought you said it was just an emergency _closet_?”

 “He lied,” Tracy grins.  “Ted takes his disaster preparedness very seriously….As we all should,” she adds solemnly after observing the look on his face – but her mouth quirks to the side in constrained amusement.

 

* * *

 

 By 7:30 p.m. WWN’s forecast is proven correct, as Central Park currently sits in over 25 inches, with snow expected to continue for the next twenty-four hours.  Despite the continued flurries, it’s now slowing down enough for them to be able to make it back home by Sunday night.  So with the end of the unique fun of their grown-up slumber party now in sight, once dinner is through and all the kids have been put to bed, the hard liquor begins to flow and the reminiscing stories they’ve resumed in telling turn increasingly more adult. 

 “Okay, prepare to be blown away,” Barney warns them as he pours himself a second glass of scotch, his coat now abandoned and his sleeves rolled up at the elbows.  “I know you expect a lot from my stories, and this one will _not_ disappoint.”

 “You’re not going to tell them about your night with the quadruple-jointed Cirque du Soleil performer, are you?” Robin groans.  “Cause the first time I heard that story, I considered divorcing you.”

 Barney throws her a wink, clicking his tongue at her.  “Number one, that story’s awe-some,” he says as he rounds the couch and returns to sit beside her, glass now full.  “Number two, you would never consider divorcing all this.”  He gestures down his body and her eyes follow appreciatively, her brow rising in charmed agreement.  “Number three, uh, nice try, Robin, but everyone already knows you like it dirty.  Far from being disgusted, you asked me if there was any way _we_ could make that work.”

 Her eyes dance playfully at him.  “Well, it _was_ our honeymoon.”

 “You told her that story while you guys were on your honeymoon?” Tracy gapes.  As the relative newcomer, she’s the only one still able to be shocked by Barney.

 “Only because it directly pertained to the situation,” he justifies.  “Heather – yes, that was her name.”  Barney smirks over at his ‘best friend’.  “But no, no relation to Ted’s sister, who I also could have Cirque-du-So-way-laid – ”

 Ted narrows his eyes at him, hitting Barney with the worst jab next to insulting his clothes.  “Haven’t you used that joke before?”

 “ _Anyway_ ,” Barney glares, “Heather could do this thing where she made a C with her body by resting on her arms with her legs bent back over her head so I could stand between them and with every other thrust easily go back and forth between sticking Lil’ Barney in – ”

 “Ew,” Lily is the one to interrupt him this time.  “We don’t want to hear about what you put where for how long.”

 Barney chortles shamelessly.  “I was gonna say from oral to vag to – ”  But Lily cuts him off with a deadly enough look to send a shiver down his spine.  “The point is, I told Robin that was the raunchiest thing I’d ever done.  Up until what _we_ just did.”  Barney grins, using his hands to demonstrate.  “I took this extra-long, wet cantaloupe slice and used it to penetr– ”

 “Alright, can we just fast-forward this story, please?” Marshall requests.

 “Fine,” Barney huffs in disappointment.  “Fast-forwarding until the end:  and then I ate it.”

 Marshall expression turns disgusted.

 “But that’s neither here nor there,” Barney continues.  “Because _this_ is the story of me and Robin in the Hollywood sign.”

 “I hate to be a spoilsport,” Tracy chimes in, “but we already know that story.  You sent us all the picture, remember?”

 “If it’s any conciliation,” Lily adds, “Robin sitting on your lap inside the Hollywood ‘O’ with the city lights in the background was _adorable_ , even by my high photo standards.”

 “It was cute,” Marshall agrees.  “I did wonder, though, which of the three ‘O’s it was.”

 Barney gives a dirty little cackle.  “The first _Oooo_ ,” he moans, “in ‘wood’.  This is me we’re talking about; it had to be in the word ‘wood’.”

 “Fair enough,” Ted nods.

 “And you guys still don’t know the _real_ story.”  He looks to Robin with puppy dog eyes.  “Can I tell them, babe?”

 She rolls her eyes, shaking her head and smiling.  “Go ahead.”

 Barney squeals with excitement, dropping a kiss to her lips before diving into the story.  “As you guys know, we were in L.A. for the Star Wars premiere – a very awesome gift from my very awesome wife,” he brags, kissing her again.  “And as a token of my appreciation, a gift for her, if you will – ”

“Oh, it was for _me_?” Robin says, giving him a look like she begs to differ. 

“Alright, it was for both of us,” he corrects.  “Cuz I knew you’d love it too.”  His eyes pin her with that look that says they both know he’s right – and when hers relent, his melt into that warm, wanting look that still never fails to do things to her all these years in. 

“Since she’d never been to L.A.,” Barney goes back to addressing the others, “I wanted to take her to the famed Hollywood Hills to see the sign up close and personal.  _Very_ personal…..”

  

* * *

  **December 2015**

* * *

 

There are a lot of things that are surreal about the situation:  the fact that they just came from rubbing elbows with a crap-ton of legitimate celebrities; that earlier this evening they attended the premiere of a brand new Star Wars film with Harrison Ford in a leading role – and it’s almost 2016; that right now she’s standing on Mount Lee in the middle of the night looking down, incredibly closely, at the giant white letters that make up the Hollywood sign.

 “Barney, I appreciate that you wanted me to see – what did you call it? – one of America’s greatest natural wonders, although there are many things wrong with that statement.  This is really sweet of you and all, but…”  She almost doesn’t say it, reluctant to burst his bubble.  “Baby, it’s not the best view.  I mean we’re super close, but for a great selfie we need to be further down with the letters above us in the distance.  I read the best place for taking a picture is near Lake Hollywood Park,” she gently suggests.

 Barney glances over at his wife who’s looking hot as hell in her sleeveless tube dress – a deep blue, at his insistence, to match the color of choice of the traditional Jedi lightsaber.  Despite it being in the low 50s, as a hardened Canadian she claims she’s not the least bit cold.  And one thing’s for sure, that dress is doing plenty to harden him too.

 “Oh, we’re not here for the picture, Robin,” he tells her, his voice a sultry promise mixed with gloating at his cleverness.  “We’re here for a much _deeper_ purpose.”  In case she doesn’t get that, he adds with a smirk, “Like, really deep.”  Without giving her a chance to respond, he blurts out, “Balls deep”, waggling his eyebrow at her.

 Even without the puns or that look in his eyes, Robin knows him well enough to have already figured out a second after the words left her mouth that they’re actually here to have sex.  “Barney, it’s illegal to go up to the sign.  That’s kinda why all these restrictive gates are up right here,” she says, pointing at the security perimeters beside them.

 “Please.  I’m Barney Stinson.  You don’t think I could find a way to get us inside?”

 “Right.  Your FBI connections.  Of course.”  She shakes her head at her own oversight.  “That’s how we ended up doing it in Apollo 11.”  She looks at her husband’s eager expression and Robin has to admit it’s been fun expanding the repertoire of unusual places they’ve done it.

 She smiles, and that’s all the more assent he needs.  Grinning, Barney grabs her hand, leading them off into the night. 

 A shady-looking guy meets them further down the fence and uses some kind of metal instrument to get them past the security barriers.  From there, they traverse down some pretty steep terrain to the bottom of the famously giant word where they only need to climb the ladder to ascend to the letter’s center.

Robin reaches up, her fingers curling around the ladder to begin to climb, but he stops her with a look of slight guilt overtaking his features.  

“In the interest of honesty, and full disclosure, and the promise I made to you when we got married,” Barney begins, and she knows nothing good is going to follow that introduction, “ _technically_ , I’m not here with the permission of the FBI.”  He shrugs.  “I just know a guy.”

“What?!”  Robin looks around them in alarm.  “So that means we could actually get arrested?”

Barney’s hands find her hips in the darkness.  “It means we’re just gonna have to do it quick,” he answers roguishly.  When she doesn’t respond with the enthusiasm he’d hoped for – in fact, doesn’t respond at all – he slides a hand up to her waist and says, “Oh, come on.  Don’t act like this isn’t _legendary_.  You, me.  F-ing in an O.”  His eyes full of sex and mischief goad her, knowing full-well the danger is only adding to the turn-on for her. 

She laughs, grabbing his lapels and pulling him into her, their hearts pounding in a heady mixture of excitement, risk, and arousal.

Little do they know as he presses her back against the ladder, making out like horny teenagers, that fifteen years prior the Los Angeles Police Department installed a security system with motion detection and cameras so that any movement in the restricted areas triggers an alarm notifying the police.

She breaks away from his lips and he groans in soft protest, but a second later she glides her hands – already resting on his pecs beneath his jacket – down low over his abs.  “Before we climb, let’s get a head start,” she says breathily. 

Robin undoes his belt, brings his zipper down, and reaches into Barney’s pants.  “Are you ready to –  ”  She cuts off with a naughty smirk when she slips her hands around him.  “Oh, you’re ready alright.”

“ _Yeah_ I am,” he agrees devilishly, diving back in for her mouth.

She teases him a moment, then withdraws her hands, starting to climb.

“Wait,” he stops her before she gets more than two steps up. 

She turns on the rung to face him.

“What about you?  Do you need me to…?”  Before she can respond, he’s touching his lips to her.  His open mouth nuzzles and nips at her pelvis through her thin dress and her hips jerk pleasantly.  Barney grins, pure sex, and murmurs against her, “You’re ready too.”

“Mm-hmm,” she confirms when he lifts his head, then smiles excitedly, turns back around and starts climbing.

Her readiness doesn’t stop her husband from priming her further by biting her thigh and the lower curve of her bottom as she climbs above him until she finally warns him to stop unless he wants them both to fall and break their necks.

They stop climbing when they reach the center of the O, which is basically just a concrete slab with beams on each side and in the center.  Standing in the middle of the O, Barney reaches for her again, hungrily pressing his tongue into her mouth as he slides her dress up to bunch at her hips.  Robin nudges his pants and boxer briefs away enough to free his erection, pushing him down to lean back against the center support pole. 

Dropping to her knees, she straddles him, slowly lowering herself down and then:  “Mmm,” he moans gruffly, “I’m inside you, _inside_ the Hollywood sign.  We are so damn awesome.”

She gives a husky giggle, balancing a hand on his shoulder, the other on his chest, to prepare to really get to business. 

But he’s gazing off out at the city.  “Just look at that view…” he says when he feels her watching him.

“Barney, we’re kind of on a timetable here,” she reminds him. 

He nods at her with that soft, sexy smile that’s only ever been for her.  “Don’t act like you’re not loving this.”  She grins back because she _is_ , then her eyes fall closed with a gasp of pleasure as he bucks up into her, and they start to set their rhythm. 

“Wait,” he pauses just a few seconds in, before they’re both too lost in it to think straight.  “I want to get a picture.”  He grabs his iPhone out of his jacket with one hand and starts to pull down the top of her dress with the other, but she catches his fingers.

“No.  If there’s any nudity at all you can’t ever show it.”  And she knows he wants to brag about it – about being up here at all, and especially about having sex here.

“Fine,” he agrees, but not without another thrust that makes her eyes cross. 

Withdrawing his fingers from inside her dress, he stretches out his other arm to get the shot as they stop, smile, and pose.  Sitting in the O with the cityscape behind them and only from the waist up, it’s the perfect picture – leaving no clue that they’re literally in the middle of having sex.

“Alright, done,” he says, dropping the phone back into his pocket, ensuring both his hands are free to touch her.  “Now I want this off.”  He yanks her dress down, and with one smooth motion of his wrist has her strapless push-up bra unhooked.  Unfortunately, with no straps to hold it in place it falls completely away and, helped by the California winds, floats off down the side of the cliff. 

“Oops,” he chuckles.

“Barney.”

“So you’ll go back au natural?”  His hands come up to fondle her breasts.  “We’ve lost worst things during outdoor sex.”

It’s true.  In Rome, they lost her underwear.  In Belize, they left behind a sex toy somewhere in the jungle.  When they were together the first time during their secret summer, they had trysts in all manners of places and she’s pretty sure Barney left a trail of their used condoms all over the city.  This is yet another in a string of once-in-a-lifetime sexual experiences, so Robin smiles and shrugs off the loss, simply enjoying herself. 

Five minutes later, not disrupting their rhythm, Barney says, “Someone’s coming.”

“Yes,” Robin pants, shimmying her hips against him.  “ _Yeees_.  Real soon….Almost there.”

He smirks.  “No, someone is _really_ down there.”

“Seriously?”  She stops moving.

“Yeah, but don’t stop,” Barney answers, finding this humorous – and it’s clearly not curbing his libido in the least.  He grinds against her, letting his head fall back against the beam in pleasure.

“Barney, it’s not funny,” she protests, still not moving anymore.  “They might think we’re terrorists.”

“It’ll be easy to explain,” he answers, unfazed. 

“They might _see_ us,” she says, bringing her arm up to cover her bare breasts.

But he just bats her arm aside, bends to take her right nipple into his mouth, sucking her skillfully, a pull that reverberates all the way down to the warm, wet heat of her where he feels her clench around him.  “And wouldn’t you just love that?” Barney teases seductively.  He lifts her hips, then drives her down hard, and she whimpers, bites her lip, and is unable to resist repeating the motion herself.  “I hear footsteps right now,” he says, and a hot twist of kinky excitement spirals through her, sending her over the edge and him along with her.

The next thing Robin is aware of is Barney’s hand stroking along her bare spine, his low satisfied laugh.  “You are still so easy to get.”

“Mm,” she sighs blissfully, “shut up.”  But a crunch of leaves beneath them brings her back to full alertness.  “Barney, come on!” she whisper-shouts, scrambling to her feet.  “Get your pants back up.”  She’s already pulling her dress into place over her chest and thighs.

“LAPD!” someone calls from below and that gets Barney up, struggling to fasten his pants without getting anything important caught in the zipper.

They hurry down the ladder – Robin first and then Barney – as fast as they can without falling.  Once they reach the bottom, his plan is to disappear into the darkness of the hills, but a bright flashlight beams shines on them. 

“LAPD!  Stop and put your hands up!” the officer commands.

“Let’s go,” Barney whispers urgently, taking Robin’s hand to run. 

“Idiot, we’ll get shot!” she hisses, grabbing his arm and holding him in place.

They both turn to face the two officers approaching them with their guns drawn.

“We’re not armed,” Robin assures them, holding out her empty hands.  “Barney, show them your hands,” she elbows him and he reluctantly obeys. 

“This is just a misunderstanding.  We’re sorry.  We didn’t mean any harm,” she says at the same time Barney ceremoniously responds, “Since when it is a crime in these United States of America to freely have sex with my wife?”

She shoots him a look that says _I’m going to kill you if these guys don’t_.  “What my idiotic husband is _trying_ to say is,” she translates for him, giving Barney another pointed look, “is we just wanted to take a picture and – ”

“Wait a minute.  Don’t I know you?” the blond officer asks her.  “Come closer.  Slowly.” 

She follows his instruction, nodding for Barney to walk along with her – but _silently_ , no more funny business! – and when she stops in front of the officer, his mouth falls open.  “Oh my god.  You’re _Robin Scherbatsky_!”

“Who?” the second, older officer wonders.

“ _You know_ ,” his partner says through his teeth, his eye widening meaningfully as he uses his neck to gesture toward her, “the anchor from WWN, the one who got stranded in that out-of-control helicopter over Manhattan a few years back.”

“Oh.  _Oh_ ,” the ebony-haired man nods to the other officer, grinning.  “ _That_ one.  Yeah, I remember you,” he says to Robin.  “You had to land the helicopter after the pilot had a heart attack.”

“Yes, that’s right,” she nods vigorously, hoping being recognized will work to their advantage.

“My partner here has got to be your biggest fan.  I swear, he’s in love with you,” he razzes him.

“No, it’s just she’s a hero!” the blonde insists, embarrassed.  “You were a hero,” he raves to Robin.  “Not only did you save the pilot’s life, but who knows how many other people on the ground.  I watch your show – ”

“You mean the _news_ ,” Robin reiterates.

“Yeah, your news.  I watch it every day.”

“He more than just watches it; it’s a participation activity, if you know what I mean,” the second officer laughs.  “Wait,” he says suddenly, his innuendo seeming to have only now sparked Barney’s words from earlier.  “Did he just say you two were having sex up there?”

“He – ”  Robin looks to Barney panicked.  “No, we –  ”

But Barney nods vigorously that they were.

“Wow,” the older man says, tickled and amazed.  “In all my years working security, that’s a new one.” 

“Is _that_ the movement we saw up there?”

They all glance over to his partner who’s starring up at the O, imagining it in his mind’s eye and looking a whole _other_ kind of impressed. 

“It was dark and everything….” he says distractedly.  “Ms. Scherbatsky, you must have some stamina for those movements to be noticeable from the ground.”  His partner clears his throat warningly and the younger man remembers himself, stammering, “But – but you really can’t be doing that.  It’s completely illegal.”

“Yes, we know.  And we’re sorry,” Robin apologizes.

“I tell you what,” the dark-haired officer announces with a grin, “this time I think we can let you off with a warning.  In exchange for some autographs.”

“Certainly,” she agrees with a winning reporter smile.

The other officer continues to look up at the center of the O yearningly, the front of his pants now noticeably tenting.  “And some pictures too,” he requests, until his partner nods pointedly down at his crotch and, mortified, he whips off his hat to use as a modesty shield.  “Maybe you guys should go ahead of us,” he gestures to Robin and Barney, hoping she won’t see.  “You know, so we can keep an eye on you.”

“Right,” Robin nods, taking Barney’s wrist and urging him along up the hill with her.

Barney leans in close to her, snickering.  “Did you see that first cop?  He totally had a boner for you.”

“Yeah.  He totally did,” she smirks proudly.  “I still got it.”

“Yeah, you do,” Barney wholeheartedly agrees.  “And you just gave it to me,” he winks, reaching down to cup her ass.

“Woah, Kyle, are you seeing this?” the officer elbows his smitten buddy.

  

* * *

  **Present**

* * *

 

“And so that picture,” Barney finishes with a triumphant flourish, “you guys thought was so cute and sweet was actually a picture of me and Robin mid-bang!”

The other four audibly groan.

“That is messed up, dude,” Marshall responds.

“What?” Barney protests.  “It doesn’t show anything.

“Alright.”  Ted stands to his feet.  “It’s after one.  I’m going to bed.” 

Yawning, Tracy nods and stands along with him.

“Marshall and Lily,” Ted addresses them, “if you’re looking to make any more storm babies, have at it.  But the master bath is off limits.”

“No more for us, thanks,” Lily laughs.

“Barney and Robin,” Ted goes on, “try to refrain from sending any selfies during tonight’s inevitable end-of-the-world sex.”

Barney shakes his head.  “Ted, the world is not ending.  We will live to bone another day.”

Robin nods in agreement.  “But we _are_ going to have some amazing Snowmageddon sex,” she divulges, raising her hand over her head to high-five her husband.

 


	2. 2016, Part 2

* * *

**February 1 st**

* * *

At Barney’s office, Robin has to all but elbow his secretary to get through the doorway first.  For the hundredth time she doesn’t like the way that woman looks at Barney as she hands him a stack of papers but fails to leave, instead hovering at his side.  

“I told Becki I could bring those to you,” Robin dryly informs him, “but she insisted that was _her_ job.”

 “I wouldn’t feel right bothering your wife with my work,” the woman insists in response.  “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Stinson?” she adds with her most charming smile to Barney.  When she looks _her_ way, Robin’s certain that smile falls a bit.

 “No, I’m fine.”

 She gives a convivial nod.  “Alright then, I’ll be going.  Buzz me if you need anything.  Anything at all,” she clarifies, walking towards the doorway. 

 “Oh, Becki,” he stops her.

 She whips around on her heel hopefully.  “Yes, Mr. Stinson?”

 “You don’t mind closing the door on your way out?”

 Robin swears Becki’s face falls again, and her own lips curve up in triumph. 

 “Certainly.  Anything you want,” Becki coos to him before slowly closing the door.

 “I still don’t like that woman,” Robin says the moment they’re alone.

 Barney’s mouth twitches in amusement at the return of their weeks’ long disagreement; he’s not above loving the fact that Robin’s jealous.  “She’s just being friendly.”

 “Not to me.”

 “She’s harmless.”  Getting up from his desk, he walks around to approach her.  “Please.  Robin, have you looked in the mirror today?” he says, his voice dropping an octave as he gives her an ogling onceover.  “And then looked at her?”  Barney pulls a face to emphasize the difference.

 “Please yourself,” Robin retorts.  “Don’t think you’re getting off on a technicality.”

 He slips his arms around her, drawing her body to his.  “I’ll get _you_ off,” he promises, leaning in for her mouth, but she holds him off.

 “Not so fast.  You dug your own grave with this one.”  He gives her a look of innocence, which in this case happens to be one hundred percent genuine.  “You love sharing your theories too much, that’s the problem.  You forget I know all about The Mermaid Theory – and her clock starting ticking the moment you hired her.”

He huffs out a laugh, caught somewhere between pride that she remembers and so thoroughly accepts his philosophies and incredulity at the misgivings it implies.  “You can’t really think I’d be tempted to actually cheat on you?”

“You’re not the one I’m worried about.  Have _you_ looked in the mirror today?” she counters, her fingers playing at the knot of his tie.  “Let’s face it; you’ve always been bimbo bait.  The only safe choice is to find you a male, _straight_ assistant.”

“We tried that last year, remember?”

“Yes, and Matt was a sweetheart.”

“Ha!  Shows what you know!”

“Stop.  For the last time, he was not trying to sleep with me.  He was just sucking up to the boss’s wife.”

“He _wished_ he could,” Barney replies, a tinge of bitterness mixing in with the gloating.

“You’re just being silly.  Matt was nice, and good at his job.  You shouldn’t have let him go.”

Barney’s eyebrow shoots up challengingly.  “You wanna know why I really fired him?”  He draws out a lengthy pause until she gives him a look that screams _Get on with it_.  “Because I caught the guy beating off to your picture.  You know the one, from “The Sexiest Women in News” issue of Esquire.”

Robin is momentarily stunned by that.  “Seriously?”  She honestly hadn’t believed Barney that those were Matt’s intentions.  “The thought of a guy having the balls, pun intended, to do that in his boss’s office is majorly disturbing.”  Yet on the immediate heels of that a pleasant flattery sinks in.  “But I mean, come on, you can’t really _blame_ him,” she says, gesturing down her body.

There’s the Robin he fell in love with, Barney thinks, his expression going soft and amused.  “Well, there’s nothing wrong with your self-esteem,” he teases.

“Courtesy of your nightly begging sessions.”

Now his features transform into playfully affronted.  “Excuse me, madam.  I do not beg.”

“Lil’ Barney does,” she charges, crossing over to the glass coffee table to deposit her increasingly heavy purse.

“Hey, he may not be able to control himself around you,” Barney argues, to which she throws him a smirk over her shoulder, “but he doesn’t have to beg either.”  Now he’s the one to smirk.  “That’s why I married you.”

“Flattering,” Robin replies flatly, but when he pulls her back against him and places a kiss to her neck her purse slides off her arm, falling unheeded to the tabletop below.  Smiling softly, she leans into his embrace, rubbing her hand over his arm and craning her neck to the side to give him more access.  “So what’d you do when you caught him?”

“What I _wanted_ to do was punch him,” Barney swaggeringly asserts between kisses.  His lips still against her skin as he reveals, “But then I thought about the liability and didn’t want to risk a lawsuit against GNB.”

“Plus, he had a good thirty pounds on you.”

“Psh,” Barney scoffs, letting her go, “thirty pounds of fat maybe.”

 Robin laughs.  “Matt was not fat.”

Disregarding that, he walks around to face her.  “Besides, I’m not afraid to punch a guy for you.  I’ve punched plenty of guys for you.”  She gives him a placating look like _Sure you have, babe_ , and it only makes him more defensive.  “I _have_.  There was Brad….and…and Alan Thicke.”  She doesn’t point out the man was practically thirty years his senior and in his mid-60s at the time.  “Plus, if Matt _had_ fought back I could’ve parlayed that into some incredible black-eye sex.”

“Hm, that’s true.”

“It was _only_ about a lawsuit.  So I didn’t punch him, just fired him and had security escort him out.  And at least I robbed him of the satisfaction of finishing,” Barney adds, finding some victory in that.  “I still had to throw away the frame and picture he’d used though.  Who knows if that was the first time?”

“So that’s why you asked for a second copy!...I actually thought _you_ were using it for that reason.”

He shoots her an improbable look.  “With all the video I have of us?  I prefer live action, baby.”

“Me too,” Robin approves, her hands finding their way back up to his tie.  “That’s why I let you film us.”  She kisses him lightly.  It was meant to be just a quick peck, but she can’t resist drawing it out a bit longer.

“Wait,” he says naughtily when she finally comes up for air, “is _this_ why you stopped by?  Cause just so you know, I had the sofa reupholstered so no more friction burns.”

“No,” she shakes her head, drawing a pout from him.  “Sorry to disappoint, but I have to get back to work.  I only stopped in quickly to tell you the news in person:  Sandy Rivers just got fired.”

“ _Really_?” Barney gapes.  “I was beginning to think that dude could fornicate on live TV without serious repercussions.”   

“Not so much, no.  Between his Christmas party hijinks and what he did on the air last night – ”  They were doing a piece on young tweens and the internet entitled “Sexting and Nude Selfies:  What Parents Need To Know” when Sandy decided to helpfully demonstrate by showing a few of his own.  “ – and yet another ensuing FCC fine, much like with Matt, the network decided he was too much of a liability.”

Barney smiles, pleased for her.  “That’s great, babe.  I know how much you wanted him out of there.”

“Wait, there’s more.  They promoted me to lead anchor.  _Just_ me.  All by myself.  I have total control to write my own stories – with the topics agreed upon by the network, but still.  It will completely be my own program, all serious news and investigative journalism.  After eleven years in New York, I’m finally the sole lead anchor of a primetime news program – and on a real, legit station like _WWN_!” she exclaims.  “This is what I’ve worked for my entire career.”  Her excitement wains, though, as she guiltily admits, “A part of me feels like I kind of owe Kevin….”

“You don’t owe that man a thing,” Barney objects, his voice noticeably harder than before.  “He was a whining bummer, dating _way_ out of his league, who never deserved you and broke off your one-day engagement because you refused to raise his screaming brat.”

“Yes, but in his defense I did cheat on him with you.  Then I was pretty distant, and all but asked him to take back his proposal,” Robin owns up to her mistakes.  “And no matter what else happened, he _did_ get me back on the air.”

“Kevin didn’t do anything.  It was a tough time for you.  You felt like you’d just lost our baby, and I didn’t even know to be there for you.  It’s understandable you weren’t yourself.  But I know you; it was only a matter of time before you wouldn’t have been satisfied with just research and would’ve gotten _yourself_ back on the air one way or another.  Anyway, it was because of you and you alone – _your_ reporting skills – that you got the permanent promotion and it wasn’t just a onetime fill-in.”

“That’s true.”

“You did this all yourself, Robin,” he firmly stress, “and I’m so proud of you.”

It’s obvious how happy that recognition, _that specific statement,_ makes her – though she’d never admit it.  She should be feeling that way every day, all the time, so Barney keeps up the praise.  “Wow,” he says, looking at her and marveling.

“What?” she giggles softly.

“I’m married to a full-fledged, bigtime newswoman, the Barbara Walters of our time.  How’d I manage to score that?”

Robin smiles appreciatively.  “The better question is how’d you manage to score _this_.”  She pulls him into a deep kiss, her tongue sliding instantly into his mouth to tease his as her hand reaches down grabbing his rear-end.  Never one to miss an opportunity, Barney grabs right back. 

“On second thought, _I’m_ the only boss now,” she says, wondering if there has ever been a more powerful aphrodisiac.  “Work can wait.  We have to christen this couch.”  And she pushes him down onto the cushions to Barney’s thrilled grin.

 

* * *

 

They spend Valentine’s Day in a manner befitting them:  playing battleship, in honor of the ten-year anniversary of the first time they played and their first night ever broing out. 

They’ve come a long way in these past ten years from new bros to husband and wife, and they’re _Barney and Robin_.  Plus, it’s Valentine’s Day:  the one night where it’s guaranteed ever couple in the country is having sex.  Naturally, their battleship game had to evolve along with them and match such a sexy occasion – which is why now it’s _strip_ battleship that they play.

Over the years they’ve adopted a mixed method of one another’s cheating strategy, with both of them bending some ships in addition to stacking others.  Robin is down to her bra and panties and Barney is in just his boxer briefs, which means that currently Robin is winning.  He has only one ship left and Robin has two, but Robin’s two remaining ships are stacked on top of each other….and Barney’s only one hit away from sinking them both.  Yet, the decidedly hot tension of their competition has taken a bit a pause over the last few minutes after she tentatively brought up to him what the network approached her with today.  

“Barney, it’s your call,” she reminds him, nodding towards her board.

“I know.  I’m just strategizing my next move,” he tells her silkily.  It’s not a lie, but has more to do with their conversation than the actual game.  What he’s really strategizing is luring her true feelings out of her, not just the answer she thinks she’s expected to give.  “D,” he starts to call, “ – no wait, B – no.  No, wait.”

“ _Barney_.”

“Shh, I’m still thinking, woman.”  He makes a show of studying the board, but uses her distraction to slip in the question, “So do you want to do it?”

“What?” Robin’s forehead crinkles up but she quickly figures out he’s talking about WWN.  “Oh, the traveling.”

“Yeah….Is that what you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”  And she really doesn’t, but they promised to always tell the truth so she eventually admits, “Maybe….”

Barney looks up from his board to meet her eyes.  “Well then, you should do it.”

She huffs out a laugh.  “It’s not that simple, Barney.”

“Sure it is.”

“It isn’t.  How do _you_ feel about it?”

“It shouldn’t matter how I feel.  This is your career and your decision.”

Robin picks the game board up from her lap, pushing forward on the couch to set it on the coffee table next to her glass of wine.  “Of course it matters how you feel; you’re my _husband_ , and I would never put my career ahead of our marriage.  I want you to be happy too.  That’s just as important to me.  If you’re not happy, I’m not happy.”

Barney’s now the one to set his board aside so he can scoot closer to her, resting his hand on her bare knee.  “Robin, I’m not going to ask you to choose.  I’m not Ted; I’ve always been supportive of your career.”

“I know.  But I want you to know that I would, if it came to that.  I would choose you, choose _us_.  I already chose a relationship over my career with Don.  And you’re the love of my life, I’d certainly do the same with you; I _married_ you.  So – so don’t be afraid to say so if this would bother you.”

“Why _should_ it bother me?” he offers in argument.  “I’ll miss you, but it’s not like you’ll be gone forever.  This is a normal part of the business, isn’t it?  Like how they send Robin Roberts or Anderson Cooper or Lester Holt somewhere for a week or two to cover something special or whenever some huge story breaks, but mostly they’re all in the studio every day.”

“Exactly,” Robin smiles approvingly, grateful that he gets it.  “Robin Scherbatsky in your living room every night, that’s what America expects, and it’s what I want, as long as I have control over the stories.  And it wouldn’t be like being a foreign correspondent or anything that extreme.  I know when we first met I used to think that’s what I wanted to do but, god, I’d be _miserable_ with that kind of constantly roving lifestyle now – probably back then too, I just didn’t realize it yet.  I’ve put down roots, they’re never going away, and I wouldn’t want them to.  But this wouldn’t be like that.  It would actually be the best of both worlds.  I’d still be a nightly anchor – with my own show on every day, not just remote segments here and there like foreign correspondents get.  Because I’ve gotta admit,” she smirks devilishly, “I love that recognition.”

Barney gasps in mock astonishment.  “You mean, Robin Sparkles – nay, Daggers – craves admiration and fame?  How shocking!”

“Shut up,” she goads back, and he laughs wickedly.

“We both know you love being America’s Hottest News Anchor.”

“Hey, as long as they come for the hotness and stay for the news, I’m doing the country a favor.”

“Yeah, you are.  And say they send you on two or so long-distance assignments a year – ”

“I made them promise it couldn’t be much more than that,” she stresses.

“ – that’s not very much time, only a few weeks.  Less than a month, really, and not all at once.  This is an ever further promotion, Robin; we’re talking big, _big_ leagues now.  I’m so proud of you.  Of course you should do this.”  For a moment, Barney’s whole body stills as he’s hit with a stroke of inspiration.  He looks over at her, his eyes huge with revelation.  “ _We_ should do this.”

It’s an adorable look on him, making Robin smile, but he can’t actually mean it the way it sounds.  That would be too good to be true.  “How do you mean?”

He gestures between the two of them.  “I’m saying me and you.  We should go together.  I should go _with_ you.  That would solve the problem of missing each other, _and_ keep you from being too sex-starved to do your job, Miss I-can’t-function-if-it’s-been-more-than-three-days,” Barney teases.

“Like you’re any better.”

“I never said I was.”  And without realizing it, his eyes prove as much by straying to her scantily clad breasts.  “This works out both ways.”

“Barney, that would be…..”  She searches for a word, realizing with a grin that none matches quite as well as:  “…legendary.  But are you sure you realize what you’d be getting in for?”

“Banging my wife all over the world?  Uh, I think I can handle that.”

“No,” she giggles, his enthusiasm quickly becoming infectious, “I mean all the traveling.”

He shrugs it off.  “Say it’s one or two work trips a year, plus our annual anniversary trip.  That means we’re looking at maybe three trips a year, say two weeks each.  We’re only talking 6 weeks out of 52.  That works out to traveling and living abroad 11.5% of the time.  That’s not overtaking our life.  That’s just lending it some awesome adventure.”

Robin has to smile at the quickness of his mathematic brain – but it also brings up a little snag in his plan.  “What if it was ever a little more than that?  I mean, _you_ have a job too.”

“Let’s say they send you on three trips a year, or even four,” he reasons.  “With our anniversary trip, that’s still only 10 weeks a year, less than 20% of our time.  It just makes for an even _awesomer_ adventure.  And it’s not as if GNB isn’t a global operation with interests in all reaches of the globe.”

She can’t fight the wide smile breaking out over her face as she blinks in disbelief.  “So….are we really doing this?” she asks.

“Hell yeah, we’re doing this.  I won’t take no for an answer.  Not that I ever do,” he quips, waggling his eyebrows at her.

Robin laughs gleefully, cupping his neck and drawing him into a kiss.  “You don’t know what it means to me, you agreeing to this.”

Barney’s expression melts into a goofy smile, all these years later still feeling like a million bucks whenever he makes her this happy.  He kisses her softly, setting his forehead to hers.  “I’m glad.  But as much as I would love to turn all this gratefulness into some very enjoyable sexual favors, it’s my turn to make an admission.”  He waits a breath and she looks at him in confusion.  “I’m not just sacrificing for you.  Sure, it’s because of your job that we’re doing this, but _I_ want to too.  Barney Stinson is no homebody.  I’ve always had the same taste for adventure and excitement as you do.  That’s always been in my blood, a part of who I am.  I’ve already traveled probably more than you, for work and for pleasure.  Before we met, there was _Barneypalooza:  The American Tour 2006_ , where in the ultimate show of patriotism I traveled around the nation on a – successful, might I add – quest to bone a girl from each state.  And don’t even get me started on my weeks in Amsterdam during Y2K, literally partying like it was 1999.  Or that month I spent in France in the summer of ‘07– spoiler alert:  _Oui_ is the only word I ever heard.  Sometimes a successively moaned string of them, along with my name, but always _oui_.  And a few years before that I toured England – horrible teeth, but welcoming women; let’s just say London Bridge wasn’t the only thing that went down, _repeatedly_.  Who do you think gave Fergie the inspiration for that song?”

“Barney,” she gets him back on track.

“The point is traveling can be _very_ interesting, even when it’s all work and no play and even when you weren’t with me.  When it’s the two of us together, everything is a millions times more fun and infinitely more legendary.”

“You really mean that?”

“I do, I mean all of it.  I’m not gonna lie; I love New York.  I’d move anywhere you were going, anywhere on this planet if that’s what it takes to be with you and make you happy, but I’m always going to prefer to have our permanent residence here.”

“So am I.  I don’t ever want that to change,” Robin assures him.  “I’m not suggesting we move away anywhere for good.  I wouldn’t want that either.  I’ll always want us to make our everyday life here.”

“So it’s settled then,” Barney proclaims. 

“It is,” she nods blissfully, kissing him again, longer this time.

“You know, I think this will be good for me.  If I were Ted,” Barney muses, “I’d call this a sign.  I like my job at GNB.  It’s what I got my degree in; this is what I wanted to be when I ‘grew up’.  Suiting up and going in to the office, the whole corporate world, that’s the only life I’ve known for the past almost twenty years.  It’s just who I _am_ now.  And don’t get me wrong, I still like it, I do….but lately I’ve been looking for a little more creative fulfillment.”

Robin shoots him a sly smile.  “I thought what we did last night was pretty creative.”

“ _Yeah_ it was,” he grins worshipfully, giving her a high five.  “Robin Scherbastky-Stinson, I adore you,” he murmurs, his hands sliding to her waist to tug her hip against his thigh.  “But I meant ‘creative’ in a professional sense.  In my personal life, in every avenue I’m fulfilled and then some.  It’s just, I think working on _The Playbook 2_ showed me how much I’ve missed writing….Truth is, I’m thinking about starting up my blog again.”

Her eyebrow goes up.  “Oh really?”

“Yeah.  I mean, even married, I still have a vision to share with the world.  My blog started out as an indirect way to reach Ted, and then it became about teaching all those other sad losers how to live.  You’d be surprised how many Teds there are on this planet!  It’s frightening!  But there’s so much more to teaching a world full of guys how to live than just how to pick up chicks.  Correction, not just things to teach guys, because the Barnacle’s advice can help women too.  My wisdom is for the whole _world_.  And have you seen how guys are dressing nowadays?  Imparting my fashion sense alone would make this world a better place.  Just the simple knowledge of how to pick out a suit and tie – and why you _should_ be wearing one – would already improve man’s existence.”

“That’s true,” Robin agrees, her fingers pushing up the back of his neck to bury themselves in his hair as she stretches her long leg out across his lap.  Unsurprisingly, his hand immediately begins stroking over the length of it.  “And remember when you came home yesterday and told me all about how Uber is the scourge of society?”

“Yah, because it’s a real _genius_ idea to bypass rigorous licensing and let any ol’ psycho drive you home in the back of his Kia Rio late at night,” he sneers.  “Besides, any bro worth his salt should already have his own preferred luxury car service on tap.”

“Hmm, I don’t know, Barney.  We had a few _great_ moments in the backs of cabs.”

“Cabs, not Ubers.  And we had some even more a– don’t stop, I’m-coming right now, Barney –mazing moments in the back of Ranjitt’s town car.  So you know what I mean.”

“I do, and that right there would make a great blog entry.”

Barney’s whole face lights up.  “You’re right, it would!  I’m stoked about this already!  And now that you’ve got me thinking, there are volumes more advice to give for having the best married life than _The Playbook 2_ could contain alone.  This will be a great tie-in!”  His latest book is all set to come out May 31 st, just in time for wedding season to gift to newlyweds.  “You could even be a guest blogger sometimes!  Give the woman’s perspective.”

“Sure.  That could be fun.” 

“I can see it already,” he begins, nearly buzzing with excitement.  “I go on your assignments with you, and if there’s no overseas GNB office there or nothing I need to get done for them, then while you’re busy at work I use that time to work on my blog:  my random observations of life, advice to better your marriage or just your general existence.  I could even include stories of our travels and the adventures we’re having around the globe and back home in Manhattan.” 

“ _Yes_ , that could absolutely work.  Barney, your mind is endlessly creative and clever.  You come up with the most ingenious things – often silly and pointless, but ingenious.  Inventions and rules to live by, hot/crazy scales.  And you’re funny!  I’ve never admitted this in front of the others but you are the _best_ storyteller.  That’s the kind of stuff that’s entertaining.  The public eats that up.  Your blog doesn’t even have to _be_ about anything.”

“Right.  It doesn’t necessary have to be anything earthshattering; just whatever I’m thinking of.”

“Exactly,” Robin smiles, picturing it now.  “It’ll be like everyone everywhere is sitting on the other side of our booth listening to you talk over a beer at MacLaren’s.”

“So there’s not even a problem.  We’re in absolute agreement here.  We’ll always be New Yorkers.  Our home will always be here.  But the Stinsons will be jetsetters, world travelers.  Robin, together you and I are going to _own_ the globe.  Continent by continent, we’ll spread our awesome to the entire planet.  We’ll teach the whole world how to live!”

She laughs happily, adoringly, at her crazy, silly, insane and utterly perfect-for-her husband.  “I love you.” 

Wrapping her arms around him, Robin tells him, “It’s still your turn, you know.”  She captures his gaze meaningfully.  “And if I were you, I’d choose A6.”

He smirks, his eyes holding hers seductively.  “Robin, A6.”

She picks up the last peg and stabs it into her ship pile.  “Would you look at that; you win,” she whispers, reaching around and unhooking her bra. 

Barney gives himself a moment to drink in her newly revealed flesh before burying his face in her soft cleavage, quickly taking a taut nipple into his open mouth.

“Technically there were two ships,” she says breathily under the warm suction of his mouth.  Reaching down for the waistline of her panties, she adds, “I’ll give you two for one.” 

“So will I,” he mutters the moment she has them off.  His hands cupping her ass, he lifts her up against him and she wraps her legs tightly around his waist, kissing him as he carries her into the bedroom. 

 

 


	3. 2016 (Part Three)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains the infamous Argentina 2016 scene, so please forgive me for allowing Barney and Robin to go a little meta. I simply couldn’t resist getting in a few digs.

For their third wedding anniversary, Barney finally makes it to Hawaii – with the woman he should’ve been taking in the first place. 

This trip, he and Robin decide they want to do something adventurous.  And because of who they are, they do so on impulse, with little thought or planning.  

They stumble into it on their second day on The Big Island when someone at the resort bar mentions his group is here to climb Mauna Loa.  Another tourist asks what that entails, and he explains that it’s a “three to five-day rigorous hike that should never be attempted by unskilled climbers.” 

The words “Challenge accepted!” come bursting from Barney’s lips before she can stop him, and the next thing she knows Robin finds herself at the base of a mountain, impressively geared up with what Barney’s Mountain Guy handily procured for them overnight.

All she can think is had she been smart she would have said, “Good luck with that”, and she could’ve been lying on the beach sipping a Mai Tai about now….But in sickness and in health and all that. 

Plus, when has she ever been able to resist going along with Barney in whatever insanity he comes up with next? 

Ultimately, after half a day of climbing, they unanimously agree on how much it _sucks_.  And, because Robin has a feeling this is going to end as disastrously as that time Barney tried to run the New York City Marathon with equally little preparation – or, you know, this time they might actually end up dead – she convinces him to quit and instead accomplish something even more awesome:  doing it on the world’s largest active volcano.

Afterwards, they spend the rest of their vacation in the way they were meant to:  sunning, swimming and drinking, enjoying the resort and each other.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the late spring continues to go well for them. 

Later that month, Barney’s new book – _The Playbook 2:  A Bro’s Guide to Being the Best Husband and Having the Best Married Life_ – comes out and peaks at number three on the nonfiction best seller list.  

Although it, like _The Playbook_ , is published under The Barnacle pseudonym as was their legal agreement, Barney nevertheless schedules a professional photo shoot to commemorate himself as a best-selling author now multiple times over.

Come late July, Robin receives her first overseas assignment.  Looking for something fresh and new beyond the Summer Olympics bandwagon, she’s set to do a location piece in Argentina. 

It was an easy locale to agree upon, with her having spent time there before and maintained some local familiarity.  And while Barney may be all about Team USA, Robin figures who needs the Olympics?  Everyone else is already covering them, and with the hot mess in Rio anyway, she’s glad WWN opted to take a different route with her.

Between Zika, the Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute and the UN commission’s recent ruling that they belong to Argentina, the former president’s in-office money laundering and embezzlement scandal, and the growing controversy over 1000% utility rate hikes on struggling families, there is _plenty_ of news coming out of Argentina that other American stations simply aren’t covering.

Happily for them both, Barney is able to make arrangements to go along with Robin overseas, and although she’s busy with her stories while they’re there, it ends up being so enjoyable that after this first week, they’ve decided to stay on a second week just for play.

Finishing up her last assignment in Buenos Aires, as exciting as it’s been, Robin can’t wait to shed her professional responsibilities and get to some straight island fun with Barney.  Tomorrow, they’re flying out to spend the rest of their time, at Barney’s prodding, just north of Mar del Plata in the little village where she lived for those three weeks in the summer of 2007.

When she returns to the hotel room, she expects to find her husband working on his blog.  Instead, he’s gotten a jumpstart on their packing and is just placing a final pair of panties into her suitcase….or at least that’s what she chooses to tell herself he was doing with it. 

Barney smiles up at her as she enters the room.  At her surprised look, no doubt because of his sudden preference for housekeeping, he explains, “The Wi-Fi is out.”

“Huh,” she answers unconcerned, though it _is_ odd for the second-largest city in South America – in a very fancy hotel at that – to be having router problems in 2016.  “That’s annoying.”

“Eh, not really,” he shrugs it off.  “Because of course I’ve got my mobile hotspot with me.  No man of my experience and means, especially one who relies on a constant stable internet connection, would ever travel abroad without bringing one.”

“Of course not,” Robin laughs.  “Anyone who would think otherwise for even a second is an imbecile.  Or stuck living in the past.”

“Right?” Barney chuckles along with her.  “Not that it would matter either way.  I’m in a cool foreign city – and I’m _Barney Stinson_.  I can always find something to occupy my time while you’re busy; I’m that awesome.  There’s a whole world out there to spread my awesomeness in.” 

“Absolutely.  And it’s not like we both don’t go to work every day anyway.  Most couples do.”

“We’d never be so clingy as to lose it because the other is away for the day at work.  Who are we, Ted?”

“Ridiculous,” Robin dismisses.  “Not even Ted’s that bad.  Besides, I’m here now,” she says, sitting down on the velvet bench at the foot of their bed to kick off her shoes.

“Exactly.  Hey, speaking of Ted, I just talked to him and Tracy before the Wi-Fi went out.”

“Yeah?  What’d they have to say?”

“Not much.  They talked about Penny the whole time.”

She gives him a wry look.  “They always do. 

“Yeah, but she’s a cute kid.  You can’t really blame ‘em.”

“Remember how cute she was the night we watched her for their anniversary?” Robin smiles fondly.  “And she’s much older now, more of her own little person and less of a crying blob.”

Barney laughs at that.  “She still cries a lot, though.”

“But now that she’s one, she’s almost completely outgrown the GERD.”

“Thank god!  My suits couldn’t take much more.”  He bows his head solemnly.  “I lost too many good men to the cause.”  When Robin giggles lightly, Barney grins; he’s never outgrown a love of making her laugh. 

“Who’d have thought _we_ would ever know words like ‘colic’ and ‘GERD’?” she muses.  “But I guess some things were bound to rub off with all our friends having kids.”

“Right?  We’re surrounded by them.  And, so far, more girls than boys.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” he says, joining her on the bench.  “It’s just different now that I’m Uncle Barney to a gaggle of females – and not in the Playboy Mansion way I’d imagined.”

Robin gives him the side eye.  “Yes, but unless you plan on filing some papers I don’t know about,” she jokes, “those Playboy Mansion dreams of living out your old age as a second Hugh Hefner died out around the time you proposed.”

“At least a year before that,” Barney grins, setting his hand on her leg.  “What I mean is, dating a stripper taught me not to merely objectify women, but – ”

“Good to hear you still objectify us, just not ‘merely’,” Robin laughs.

“Right, and like you don’t ogle a chiseled piece of meat when you get the chance.  I’ve seen you during Fleet Week.”

“Fair enough,” she concedes.

“My point is now that I’m the uncle and godfather to all these girls, Sadie, Daisy, Penny – it’s like I have this _need_ to protect them.” 

Hearing that does something funny to Robin, makes her insides go all gooey for a second; she figures it must be some deep-seeded, primal, chromosomal response.  Still, the feminist part of her makes her reply, “That’s sweet, Barney, but you know that just because they’re girls they’re not precious little things that need to be guarded and sheltered like some prized pony.  That’s patronizing.  They have to be free to make their own decisions.”

“Well, _yeah_ ,” he agrees.  Raised by a strong, single mother himself, that’s a given for him.  “I’m just thinking about when they’re teenagers and get hurt by some asshole who takes advantage of them and preys on their feelings, like Simon did to you.”

“Or like you did to a lot of women,” she gently points out.

“But _grown_ women,” he’s quick to make clear.  “Very grown.”  Barney mimes large breasts, winking.  “Old enough to know better.”

“And the feelings you preyed on most were strictly sexual,” Robin concurs.

“Exactly.”  He taps his nose.  “No, once the girls are of age, their choices are up to them.  I’ll never see them as some clichéd, delicate little flowers.  They have just as much freewill as any man, and I’ll treat them the same as I do Eli and Marvin.  Once they’re eighteen.  If they want to hang out at MacLaren’s every night to get laid like we used to, who am I to stand in their way?  _We_ had fun, didn’t we?  I’m not about to become some condescending male, presuming to tell them that _I_ know best and chasing young girls out of bars, or trying to lock them up at home.  That’s something _Ted_ will do.  Not me.”

He pauses and his expression tells her there’s more he’s not saying.  “But you’ll kind of want to?” Robin guesses with a smile.

“No.  Not any more than the boys.  I mean it; they can do what – and who – they want.  Just hopefully they’ll stay away from guys like I used to be.  Or anyone who owns a copy of _The Playbook_.”

“Hmm,” Robin considers.  “But maybe guys like that deserve at least a chance too.”  She inches closer to him, her fingers sliding up along his lapel.  “Think of all that fun we would’ve missed if _I_ had stayed away from you.”

“Excellent point,” he murmurs, and his eyes go hooded as they gaze down at her mouth.  Curving his hand around her neck, Barney pulls her into a kiss, his thumb stroking along her jawline.

“Easy there,” she chortles low when he deepens the kiss and his free hand slides under her suit coat.  “Once that starts we’ll be here for at least another hour, and I want you to take me out on the town.  This is the last night of the working part of our trip and the start of the pleasure portion.”

“I like the sound of that….”

“And we already decided this morning to kick it off in style,” she holds him off.  “Which does mean ending the night with you inside me, but also doing some _other_ fun stuff first.”

“So…starting with the toys?” Barney smirks, laughing when she shoots him a deadpan glare.  “Alright.  I can be the dutiful husband,” he says, removing the temptation of his hands on her body.  “So how was work?”

The question gets her smiling in excitement.  “My last interview went even better than I’d hoped.  I think this is going to be a really strong piece.”

“Naturally, from a really strong journalist,” he rejoins, making her beam with pride.

“What else did Ted and Tracy have to say?  What’s going on back home?”

“Not too much.”  He thinks it over, his mind searching out the highlights.  Grinning, Barney recalls, “There _was_ the saga of Penny and Frank.”  Frank is the adorable stuffed puppy dressed as a medieval peasant that Tracy and Ted bought for their daughter at the last renaissance fair.  Ted named it after Frank Lloyd Wright, and she takes it with her everywhere.  “Apparently, he got lost for a couple days and she was inconsolable till they found him again under the couch at Marshall and Lily’s.  Ted takes it as a sign that she’s meant to be an architect too.  What else?....She finally decided to like peas…and she and Daisy have invented this secret little language.  Oh!” he all at once remembers.  “And there was the big thing, why they FaceTimed me to begin with:  Penny took her first steps all by herself.”

“She did?”

“Yeah.  They even got her to take a step or two for me while we talked.  It was crazy cute.”

Robin smiles faintly but there’s something of unrest niggling at the edges of her mind.  “Wow, so then your afternoon was pretty much all Penny highlights…”

“That’s because they won’t shut up about her.”

She nods and doesn’t say anything else for a full twenty seconds until:  “You know, before, when we thought I was pregnant, if I really had been…our child would be about four right now.”

Barney looks over at her curiously.

“Do you ever think about that?” she wonders.

“Not really.”

She can tell he thinks it’s an odd question.  “I mean, I know that you’re willing to give up kids to be with me; I get that.  But if it _weren’t_ for me and my issues…did you – would you ever consider having kids?”

He looks at her a studying moment.  “Where is this coming from?”

“Well…people get married,” Robin explains, “and we’ve been married for three years now.  Babies are traditionally the thing that comes next.  And I don’t want to have made you give up something that you might, maybe want someday.”

“Robin – ”

“Before you start, I know all about Not a Father’s Day – I get that too – but I also know _you_ , so that answer alone doesn’t fly with me.  We both once swore we’d never want to get married either,” she reminds him.  “Sometimes we lie to ourselves.  Or don’t know we want something until it’s right there in front of us.  And, clearly, the things we want can change.  So…is there any part of you that sometimes might want to be a dad?”

“Robin, no,” he answers firmly.

“Are you _sure_?”

“Haven’t we had this conversation before?”  Despite his efforts, a touch of frustration leaks into Barney’s tone.

“But don’t you ever wonder what it would be like if we did have a kid?” Robin persists.  “If _we_ were parents too, right along with everyone else?”  Before he can answer, she underscores it with, “You promised to always tell me the truth.”

He sighs, because they both take that wedding vow very seriously – and in this case, it means getting into what has the potential to be some very touchy issues he feels are better left steering clear of, especially while they’re on vacation.

“Okay, _maybe_ once or twice a fleeting thought entered my mind.”  She blinks four times in quick succession, what he’s learned to be her tell for being hurt or upset, so he takes her hand in his.  “But only because our friends surrounded us with babies.  A thought or two is only natural.  Like – and swear you’ll never mention this to anyone – how before I met you, because I was around Marshall and Lily all the time, once or twice I thought about what it would be like if I was in a relationship.  Not because I _wanted_ to be in one, mind you.  There wasn’t a single woman I was interested in, let alone had feelings for.  It’s just normal to see something and wonder how it would be, how _you’d_ be in their shoes.”

“That’s not exactly the greatest example, Barney,” she replies, far from assuaged by his admission.  “I think on some level you _did_ want to be in a relationship, you just didn’t know you did until after we met.”

A small huff of exasperation escapes him.  “Well, the same can be said for you then,” he shoots back, not knowing what she wants, apparently finding fault with any answer he gives. 

“Are you mad?”

“No.”  His fingers riffle up into his hair, scratching at the crown of his skull.  “I’m not mad, Robin, but– ”  He stops short and almost doesn’t say it….but they’re already into this now.  “This has come up before, and – ”

“Not for a long while.”

“No, but when we keep going over this, it makes me feel like maybe you’ll never fully believe me that you and you alone are enough for me, and…that….hurts.”

She lays her hand over his shoulder, her fingers curling into the soft fabric of his shirt.  “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Barney.  I know you love me.”

“And you are more than enough.  You’re _all_ I want.”

“I believe that too.” 

He makes a sound of doubt, based on what she just said. 

“No, I do,” she swears.  “I do believe it.  I guess I – I guess it’s hard for me to I accept that you never, ever think about it, never wonder if you’d want it…because _I_ do.”

“You do?” Barney asks in genuine surprise.  Not that he hasn’t seen a maternal side to her, one their other friends probably haven’t, but they’ve talked about this and decided it wasn’t for them.  Although, as she said, the things a person wants can change.  “You want a baby?”

“No,” is her immediate answer.  But then she blinks, sighing as she admits, “I don’t know.  I don’t _think_ so.  I just – sometimes I think about what it would be like if I could get pregnant and we made a baby together and were parents….I think about it more now that we’re surrounded by babies, and now that I’m getting older.”

“I don’t want to sound insensitive, Robin,” he hazards, “but the reality is, with us, we wouldn’t be talking about a biological child anyway so your age doesn’t really matter.”

“It does to me.  I don’t want to be fifty and raising a toddler.”

He tips his head in agreement to that.  “I see your point.”

“I know I never wanted kids.  I _never_ pictured that as a part of our life.  And there are still a lot of things about it that I know we wouldn’t like – either one of us.  Logically, I know that, and I’m happy with just the two of us….But all that still doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, sometimes.  What it would be like if _we_ had a baby.”  She hesitates, no longer meeting his eye.  “I know it’s stupid.  Because we don’t.  And we can’t.  That’s not ever going to happen, so it doesn’t matter anyway, so why even wonder?”

“Robin, it’s not stupid.  It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.  There’s nothing weird about it,” he reassures her.  “You’re right, generally after three years of marriage babies are the thing that comes next.  And all our friends are having kids.  It’s only natural for the mind to go there.  So let’s talk about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s talk about what it would be like if we were parents.”

“Seriously?” she questions, skeptically.

“Seriously,” Barney nods.  “If you think about it, I want to think about it too.  Let’s say things were different, and because we do it like crazy – ”

“ _Yeah_ we do,” she interrupts, because after all these years he’s rubbed off on her until it went from hearing him in her head to unconsciously saying the words out loud as her own response.

He smirks, continuing, “I accidentally got you all kinds of pregnant, and it’s nine months later and you’ve just had the baby.  Now what?”

“Now…we take it home.”

“And?” he prompts her.

Robin pauses a moment, conjuring it up from the edge of her imagination, something soft and wispy and picture perfect, the conglomeration of every sentimental TV show and movie she’s ever seen.  “And she’s cute – even cuter cause she looks like us – and we hold her and love her just like we do Daisy and Penny – only she’s _ours_ – and we play with her and it’s fun being our own little family.”

“It’s fun until we play Peek-a-boo for about the hundredth time,” Barney puts in sardonically.

“I know!” Robin breaks from her reverie to wholeheartedly agree.  “What is it with that kid and Peek-a-boo?  Not even a one-year-old should be _that_ amused by jumping out from behind your hands.  How can she not figure it out at this point?”

“Right!  Ted thinks she’s going to be an architect, but I think they should do some serious investigating into whether Tracy drank while pregnant.”

“Barney,” she chastises him.

“The point is kids like repetitive, dumb crap that’s cute for an hour or two – or maybe even babysitting overnight – but it gets real old, real fast when you’ve got weeks, months, and years ahead of you to deal with it.  Trust me,” he reveals, “I did not let up on my trick handcuffs obsession until my mom _fiii-nally_ bought me a pair when I was ten.”

Robin’s forehead creases in dismay.  “I don’t want to go through ten years of whining over some toy.”

“Handcuffs are _not_ a toy,” Barney objects.  “They’re a key tool of a magician’s artistry.”  Then he catches himself, remembering that’s not the debate here.  “But I see your point.”

Robin goes on, imagining parenthood as it really is this time.  “…And every time we try to get some sleep, our baby cries.  It’s like she has some weird radar to know the minute we close our eyes; Lily and Tracy swear babies have that.”

“Or our little guy or girl takes a page out of Marvin’s book and cries every time we try to have sex.”  Barney’s eyes go huge with dread at the thought.  “I can’t have a kid who’s a guaranteed eighteen-year cockblocker!”

Robin’s stomach drops, remembering.  “Marshall and Lily went, like, _six months_ with no sex after Marvin.”

“And seven after Daisy….Not to mention,” he adjoins in panic, “fighting over taking care of the kids was the first thing that started to tear James and Tom’s marriage apart.”

“And it doesn’t even end after they’re not little babies,” she frowns.  “I remember when Katie was young.  There’s _always_ something.  Hockey practice.”

“Football,” he corrects.

“Curling competitions.”

Barney changes it to, “Basketball.”

“PTA meetings.” 

She looks to her husband expectantly when no Americanized version comes

  
He shrugs, informing her, “Those are actually the same here.”

“Parenting doesn’t get any easier even when they’re older,” she recognizes in alarm.

“I think it actually gets _harder_ ,” he realizes right along with her.  “Just think about all that teenage dating stuff we just talked about…And when they’re adults, only being able to _hope_ they’re somewhere okay.  How do you even deal with that?  Can you imagine if we never knew where Legendary was at any given time?  My mom still calls me every time there’s a mass shooting – even one across the country – just to make sure I’m safe.”

“Now’s not the time to get into the gun argument, Barney,” Robin waves him off in annoyance, “but you’re right that the responsibility never ends.  What if our six-year-old son gets all sugared up on one too many ice cream sundaes at your mom’s and then he won’t go to sleep no matter what we try, and we both have to be up early the next morning for work?”

“I don’t want to go around with Marshall’s bags under _my_ eyes!” Barney objects in horror. 

“Or what if our four-year-old daughter insists on catching another Pokémon – ”

“No one’s doing that anymore, Robin.”

“Or has a meltdown because we won’t let her have another ten minutes on her hoverboard?  Or what if she has a bad dream and – ”  Robin shudders at the mere thought.  “ – wants to sleep in _our_ bed, but we just got back from a Rangers game with a record number of brawls and we’re ready to get our swerve on?”

“What if it just has stupid interests?  Like _calligraphy_?” Barney puts forward.  “And it’s just a kid, so it’s not like we can call it a loser like we do Ted.”

“We’d have to just steer into the skid and buy a set of nibs and ink!” she says, her expression full of revulsion.

“We would never get to do exactly what we want, exactly when we want ever again!”

“We _wouldn’t_.”  She shakes her head in aghast agreement.  “That’s the number one thing I’ve learned from watching our friends have kids!”

They both grow silent several recovering moments, the way you have to catch your breath after being startled by a scary movie.  Eventually, Robin sighs, glancing over to Barney.  “But our kid would be hella cute.”

He nods.  “And a gifted singer and dancer….With your genes and mine, she’d be the best charmer on the planet.”

“But a cockblock.” 

“And a sleep-block.” 

“And a _fun_ -block,” Robin adds, “cause no more staying out late drinking.”

“No more long nights at the cigar club.”

“No more traveling for years, not till they’re much older.” 

“Uh-uh.  Just night after sexless night of the same episode of _Elena of Avalor_.”

Robin grins, bumping her shoulder into his.  “I’m glad we thought about this together.  Now if I ever have anymore ‘what if’s, I’ll remember this and know that the best things for us to adopt are kids with four paws.”

Barney’s face lights up at that reminder.  “I had Ranjit swing over to the apartment so I could FaceTime with Legendary.  He was happy to see me, but I think more interested in that new young Lab who moved in across the hall.”  He nudges her side.  “Looks like our little guy inherited our sex drive.”

Robin laughs, wrapping her arms around Barney and drawing him in.  “I love you.”

“Mmm, I love you too, baby,” he murmurs against her lips, then realizes what he just said.  “Too soon?” he asks sheepishly.

“Shut up and kiss me,” she smiles, pressing her lips into his.

Her tongue sliding hotly over his tells Barney that any reservations Robin had over the kids subject have died out, her sole focus on him now – which he’s just fine with.  He skims his hand down to her waist, angling her hips into his, and a second later his fingers search out the button on her pants.

Until she stops him. 

“Not so fast,” she smirks, slipping back out of his grasp.  “We’re _still_ going out tonight first.”

 

* * *

 

In the morning, they’ll take a twenty-five-minute flight from Buenos Aires to Mar de las Pampas, one of the most picturesque resorts on the coast, famous for its tranquility, extensive secluded beaches, and forests.  That’s how the travel agent sold it, anyway.  All Barney cares about is that it’s famous for something else:  Robin’s brief 2007 stint living there with Gael.  He plans to recreate and outdo her last time there – including _plenty_ of windsurfing sex. 

In the meantime, they’re going to do up Buenos Aires right! 

All week, they’ve had a chance to experience the restaurants and shops of Florida Street, but late-night here is something altogether different.  The area comes alive with street performers, living statues, comedy troupes, singers, dancers, and acrobats.  It’s vibrant and bustling and fun, not all that different from New York, and it has an Art Deco design that would have Ted beside himself.  Barney and Robin, however, could care less about that.  They’re just looking for a good time, only interested in having a wild and crazy night.   

They get drunk on Malbec, Hesperidina, and because Barney insists – “It’s from _Guys and Dolls_ ; we _have_ to try this!” –  Dulce de Leche cocktails, and the mischief they get up to throughout the night only reaffirms their decision for Robin.  

After the bleak days following her diagnosis five years ago, and the humiliation – first with Kevin and then with Barney – of wondering if it would be a deal-breaker for a guy, she’s so happy to be at this point in her life.  Madly in love with a husband who’s madly in love with her. 

And they get to be the center of attention.  It always gets to be all about _them_. 

They can go out and have fun together, just being together, enjoying each other.  They get to have that, a life where they can devote all their free time and energy _only_ to each other. 

She’s unspeakably glad to have found someone who appreciates that just as strongly as she does.  Because she’s well aware it’s atypical; too many Marshalls and Teds she could have ended up with _would_ have resented her, or at the very least she would have been holding them back. 

But they have all _this_ instead:  nothing but fun, sex, and love – and a world at their fingertips.  All the very best things in life.

Reveling in the fact that they, and they alone, get to be the irresponsible, thrill-seeking, self-absorbed ‘children’ of their family – they never have to give up being the ones to have the fun – by the time Barney and Robin leave the bar, they’re so carefree and drunk they end up joining in with the tango dancers outside as they perform their routine. 

Robin earns 75 pesos, Barney 15; he claims the variance is only due to the killer red dress she changed into before they went out.  Not that he’s complaining; _he’s_ the one who gets to reap the true benefits of the dress since he can look as well as touch.

After the dancing, they meander their way through the town, still carrying a few bottles with them that they swiped from the bar.  Somehow their wandering eventually takes them through a deserted Bosques de Palermo, the city’s answer to Central Park. 

Taking advantage of their apparent isolation, Barney wants to break into the Buenos Aires Zoo just for the hell of it.  Robin is more fascinated by Rose Garden Lake, which is where they ultimately walk toward.

She finds a picturesque spot next to an overgrown tree and they sit together beneath a clear, starry sky.  Sitting soon leads to drunken kissing, until all at once she abruptly stands, turning her back to the water to face him. 

Stymied at the absence of her mouth and body, it nevertheless takes Barney’s inebriated mind a moment to react.  It’s only when she reaches up behind her neck and begins untying the thin straps that hold up her dress that he asks, “Robin…what are you doing?”

“Birthday-suiting up,” she whispers on a giggle. 

Even fully sober, he couldn’t have imagined a more legendary answer and he watches as, backlit by the moon, she slowly disrobes.  By the time her dress is down to her waist, Barney can’t wait anymore and reaches for her.  Giggling again, she lets him pull her in. 

Were he sober, Barney might have taken a second to appreciate his wife’s skill because somehow she manages to simultaneously straddle his lap and strip off his suit coat in one fell swoop, and without missing a beat loosens his tie enough so her mouth can get at his neck. 

His hands went to her bare breasts the instant she sat down and he’s been content with that, content with slowly thumbing her nipples as she sucks his neck.  But that changes when Robin starts rocking against him.  Then his lips are hungry for hers, his whole body is hungry for hers, and he devours her while pushing up handful after handful of her long skirt.  As his somewhat more clumsy fingers _finally_ find her bare thighs, Barney trails his mouth down her neck to latch onto her right breast – another perk that will always be his and his alone; no need to share with a screaming, wriggling infant – while she works to get his belt undone.

Then they’re having sex on a bench beside the lake in Parque Tres de Febrero, right out in the open where anyone can see.  Though they’re both too drunk to remember, Robin says ‘I love you’ during sex – right in the heat of it, not in the afterglow as normal – so thankful is she to have fallen in love with and married a man of her own mind and heart.

Later, they stumble back to the hotel, barely even able to walk anymore. 

Unwittingly, they end up across the hall from their actual hotel room; afterwards, they’ll blame it on the random Argentinian woman for leaving her door unlocked in a hallway where every door looks the same. 

Still making out, they stumble into the room, eventually falling completely in a tumble of tangled limbs.  Disoriented and exhausted, both laughing hysterically, they can’t seem to make it back up onto the bed so they just pass out together on the floor, empty bottles all around them.

 

* * *

 

Barney is the first to stir in his sleep. 

Robin’s still deep in a dream.  Those same kids that disappeared almost five years ago are back, only not quite so grown.  This time an unkempt Dream Robin – with stringy unwashed hair and back slumped from exhaustion, looking a lot like Ted claimed she did right before she and Barney broke up – has just finished putting their boy to bed in his toddler suitjamas and is praying his little sister, who Dream Barney just laid down in her shimmering Robin Sparkles crib, stays asleep so the two of them can get some rest of their own, when Actual Barney accidentally elbows her in the neck, knocking her from the dream. 

“Wha?” she slurs.

“Huh?  I’m awake!” Barney proclaims with a start.  His too quick effort to sit up is met with a pain so severe it feels like Eli – who recently claims to be a drummer in the next One Direction style band – is pounding in his head.  By instinct, his fingers go up to pinch the bridge of his nose, though that’s never once proven successful in warding off the throbbing. 

Robin takes a more conservative approach, merely struggling up onto her elbows, and wonders why they’re met with hard floor instead of the softness of a bed.  All at once, flashes go through her mind – blinking lights; the crowded city square; a table full of empty glasses; twirling a curvaceous woman into a dip, the black fringe of the dancer’s dress whirling over the red fabric of her own; Barney’s bare chest rubbing against hers beside some kind of pond, skin on skin and he’s moving inside her.  “God,” she mutters, “did last night really happen?”

He’s inclined to say no, but he just discovered his hand wrapped around an empty bottle, so whatever she remembers – however crazy – probably did happen.  “I think so.”

She looks up, trying to determine where they are, but the overhead fan distorting the incoming sunlight doesn’t help with her dizziness.

“Look, let’s just agree,” Barney says, managing to get into a mostly seated position, “absolute silence for the rest of the day.”  He sets his hand to her forearm, intending to get the both of them up and onto the bed to suffer in at least a little more comfort when the sound of a baby’s cry pierces the air.

Robin groans in despair, their daughter from her dream in the forefront of her mind.  It’s just like they said!  The _minute_ you try to get any rest!  Looks like she was right to be afraid of the baby waking.

Next to her, Barney just chuckles softly, his eyes closed again.  Mostly out of it too, he laughingly remarks, “ _Every_ time.”  Thinking of James and Tom, he offers, “You want me to get her?”

“No, I got her,” she says grumpily, pushing a hand off his jacket that’s thrown over the stool to help her to her feet.

By instinct, she goes over to the golden crib – almost identical to the one in her dream – and reaches down to coo at and cuddle the crying babe, bouncing her slightly as she snuggles her head between her neck and shoulder the way she’s always done with her godchildren whenever they’re fussy.  But it’s that moment of contact, that scent of baby lotion that’s different from the kinds Tracy and Lily have used, that brings Robin to full, stark awareness – now suddenly, disconcertingly wide awake. 

She freezes, her body going startled.  “Hey, Barney?”

“Yeah?” he answers woozily, leaning against the bed, well on his way back to sleep.

“Whose baby is this?” Robin wonders in alarm.

That’s when the child’s actual mother comes walking out of the adjoining suite, yelling at them in Spanish.  Robin looks between the crib and the woman, unsure of what to do with the baby she’s accidentally holding but overwhelmingly wanting to get out of her arms before they’re charged with attempted kidnapping. 

The woman comes marching over, still berating them, and Robin readily hands over the child.  Barney too abruptly has the presence of mind to flee, half cleaning up after themselves in the process, taking one of their empty bottles and his suit coat with him.  Though he’s still out of it enough to beg her pardon in French rather than the correct native tongue as they flee the woman’s room.

Across the hall in their actual room, Robin sags back against the door, her heart pounding.  Looking to Barney, she says, “Okay.  What the _hell_ just happened?”

“I know!  Who leaves their door unlocked in this day and age?”  He gasps, but his usual dramatics are half-hearted in his current state.  “Or maybe the hotel uses the same key for _all_ the rooms.  There’s an exposé for you.”

“No.”  Robin shakes her head and immediately regrets it.  “I meant, I can’t believe we just thought that woman’s baby was ours.”

“Well, I don’t know that I thought she was _ours_ exactly.  I might’ve assumed it was Penny or Daisy.”  Barney shrugs.  “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t thinking, just reacting.”

“ _I_ thought it was our baby,” she admits, startled.  “Kind of.  I’d been dreaming and – ”

Her admission has Barney looking a bit concerned now too.  “Robin, why did you want to get so drunk last night?” he asks, and she understands what the question is implying:  was she upset from their conversation yesterday?

“ _You_ were just as drunk,” she answers defensively.

He scoffs at the reverse implication that maybe _he_ was the one longing for something.  “I was celebrating being on vacation with my hot wife.”

“And I was celebrating being on vacation with my hot husband.”  She had no deeper motive, nothing lurking beneath the surface.  “There wasn’t anything more to it than that,” she assures him as she sinks down to sit on the bed because her head is really starting to pound.

Barney smiles faintly, coming to sit beside her.  “We did egg each other on, didn’t we?”

“Still...” she wonders, not quite able to let the oddity of it go.  “What just happened in that room, that was weird, Barney.  Like, seriously weird.  I thought we had it all figured out last night but…do you think it means something?”

“What just happened in that room was a hungry baby, two seriously hungover adults, and a third who needs to learn to use a deadbolt.”  When she gives him an acerbic look, he cuts to the heart of what she’s getting at.  “I was telling the truth last night.”

She nods, satisfied.  “So was I.”  However a second later, she continues to question, “But the way we acted, who reacts like that unless they’re parents?  Or secretly want to be?” she has to add, because it’s the obvious conclusion to come to.  “ _Do_ you think we secretly want that?”

“What I think is that you need to lay off the sauce, Robin.”

“Barney, I’m serious.”

“Fine.  It was a little odd, yes.  But it only happened because we were both so groggy and hungover and still half-asleep,” he reasons.  “And all that about Penny and having a kid of our own was the last sober conversation we had last night.  I don’t think we’re harboring any secret longing for anything.  Come on,” Barney quips, “do you honestly think we’re that deep?”

“Good point,” she smiles, making him chuckle softly.

“Don’t Ted out about this, okay?  The only thing it proves is that we could do it.  We could totally rise to the occasion and raise a kid – even in a hungover stupor.  Marshall, Lily, Ted and Tracy never had to deal with that.  But we just did.  _And_ you got that kid to stop crying, even though you were a complete stranger to her.” 

She hadn’t thought of it that way.  “That’s true.”

“Yes, it is.  We’d be great parents,” Barney asserts, though he’s quick to append, “if we _had_ to be.  If Marshall and Lily and Ted and Tracy can do it, we certainly could too.  Just look at how great we are at being married.  We’re _way_ better than them; it’s no contest.  We prove you can be married and still not be lame.”

That has Robin grinning, despite feeling awful enough to wish Stinson’s Hangover Fixer Elixir truly was real.  “Speaking of being married and still not being lame…last night rocked, even if we are paying for it this morning.”

“What I can remember of it did.”  His chest puffs up as he proudly brags, “Marshmallow and Lilypad never got to be a part of a professional performance of the tango – in the very country where it originated.”

“So that _was_ real!” Robin realizes.

“I bet they never have Naked Saturdays either.”

“Neither could we if we had a kid.  And it’s not just the sex and nudity.”

“That alone is enough, though,” Barney interrupts anxiously, giving the two the utmost significance they deserve.

“Remember earlier this year when we babysat Marvin and Daisy overnight?  It was _terrible_.”

“A four-year-old and a not yet two-year-old?  Yeah, I remember,” Barney says sardonically.  It will haunt him for years to come.  How could he _not_ remember?  “Forget Pearl Harbor; _that_ was a day that will live in infamy!” 

“And if we were parents, we’d have to be taking care of a baby right now, when neither one of us wants to even move.” 

Barney rubs her shoulder, the closest he can get to comforting in his current state, just above walking zombie.  “If we had to, we’d dominate being parents just like we dominate everything else.  What happened across the hall proved it.  But the reality of being a parent isn’t anything I’m longing for, I can promise you that.  It was _never_ about an inability, Robin.  It’s about a lack of desire.”

She nods again and is hit with a pain in her temples so severe it sends her stomach roiling.  “I know,” she manages through the nausea.  “I feel the same way.”

“You see,” he says, hoping she’s willing to let this go now so they can have that absolute silence he’d hoped for earlier.  “I get that this can be a complicated issue.  But for us, it’s really just that simple.  There’s no hidden, subconscious agenda here.”

“No,” Robin agrees.  “There isn’t.  We just want each other and the life we have now more than we’d ever want a kid.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that.  There’s also nothing wrong with occasionally thinking about it and wondering.  That’s just human nature; it doesn’t have to mean anything.  I have no regrets about our life,” he tells her candidly.  “And as cute as a little Barney/Robin hybrid would be, as much as I would love it if it did exist, I have _zero_ desire to change our life by adding a kid into the mix.  I mean, I’d do it for you if I had to, but I don’t want or need it for myself.”

“Neither do I.”  Robin sighs, chagrined.  “I don’t know what got into me.  Maybe it was just a hormonal thing,” she muses.  “My last few eggs freaking out.”

“Babe, you’re not even forty.  I’m sure you’ve still got eggs left in there.  At least enough for an omelet.”

“You’re an idiot,” she laughs.

That ability to charm her, to make her laugh, still makes him feel more like the king of the world than anything else can – even that time he gave her eleven consecutive orgasms.  “I’m _your_ idiot,” he replies.  “That means you’re entitled to an occasional Dahmer moment.”

“It wasn’t a Dahmer moment,” she protests.  “I think maybe I just needed to figure out one more time that we could, that the possibility is there, not just physically but that we could handle it too.  We – both me and you – are just actively _choosing_ not to.  I don’t know, maybe I just needed to visualize how it all would be in order to realize I wouldn’t ever want it anyway.” 

Robin frowns, letting out of a huff of laughter.  “Okay, it was a total Dahmer moment.  This whole thing is ridiculous!  Stupid, unpredictable, irrational girlish feelings.  I blame the damn double X chromosome.  It’s all its fault.” 

“Yeah, but so are these,” Barney says, bending to nuzzle her breasts.  It makes him dizzy but it’s totally worth it.

“True,” she acknowledges, running a hand up the back of his neck and into his hair.  “But this little freak-out wasn’t nearly as much fun as you have with them.”

“I don’t know,” he argues, lifting his head to meet her eyes with a naughty light in his.  “I may only partially recall it, but you riding me topless on a park bench was certainly a highlight.”

Robin smiles, but maintains, “I still blame an overflow of hormones.  Because the truth is if I actually were to have gotten knocked up during our marriage – even last night – I would be _seriously_ freaking out.  Like hardcore.  I wouldn’t want a little being invading my body, and I sure wouldn’t want it cockblocking us once the little guy came out.”

“Plus, full disclosure:  Stinson babies have uncommonly large heads.  In the 90th percentile.  You do _not_ want one of those things blowing out Robin’s Funland.”

“No, I do not.”  She shudders.  “By the way, do you know what happened to my shoes?” she asks, looking down at her bare feet.  It’s a mistake that causes a chain reaction:  her head throbs, her stomach rebels, and she feels something rising up in her throat.  Robin moans in misery.  “So much for my vow to never again get as drunk as you were the night before our wedding.”

“But we had a hell of a time!” Barney cheers. 

She can’t feel her husband’s same enthusiasm at the moment and makes a sound somewhere between a cough and a burp.  Fearing she might hurl, he reaches over and hands her the small potted plant off the nightstand, but the need subsides.

“Let’s just lie down,” he suggests.  “Later we can order up some coffee and Red Bull to get us going, but we have all day to rest until we catch our flight tonight.”

“Yeah,” Robin agrees, already settling down into the softness of the pillows.  “Then we’ll rally and totally do it in the plane’s bathroom.”

“Challenge accepted,” he says, lying down beside her, and they high five weakly.

 


	4. 2016 (Part Four)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had meant to post this for Halloween but discovered it still on my laptop. Sorry for the delay, and Happy Halloween one week late!

On a Friday night in late September, Robin, Lily, and Tracy are enjoying their monthly girls’ night. 

September was Lily’s turn to choose where they’d go, which is how they ended up in an art studio in Chelsea at a two-hour pottery painting class.  Barney laughed when he heard that’s what Robin would be subjected to while he and the guys are out enjoying copiously buttered movie theater popcorn and _The Magnificent Seven_ remake.  She failed to see the humor in it. 

The only saving grace is that it’s a BYOB pottery painting class, so at least they can get mildly soused on some pretty decent bottles of Damilano that Tracy brought while they paint vases they will never, ever use.

It’s when Robin is a bit bent over to finish painting in the orange streak on her emperor penguin’s beak that Lily notices the hickey’s edge just barely peeking out above the lace of her bra. Of course, she points it out to Tracy, and it gets the two of them making jokes about her and Barney being like horny teenagers.

“Come on, guys,” she objects in their defense.  “Barney and I are very sexual people, yes, but it’s not like we’re nymphos the way you’re making it sound.”

“Your husband did have sex with over three hundred women,” Lily points out.

“And you and your husband spent years drinking at the bar with us every night; didn’t make us alcoholics,” Robin argues.  “There’s a difference between enjoying something and being addicted to it.  Besides, you both know Barney was a special case.”

“That’s true,” Tracy agrees, making a swipe of pink paint down the vase she intends on putting in Penny’s room.  “Using sex as a crutch to escape your reality isn’t quite the thing as being dependent on it.”

“Exactly,” Robin nods. 

“Just like Lily is a foodie,” Tracy maintains, “but we wouldn’t call her food _obsessed_.”

“I don’t know about that,” Robin puts in.  “You were never on the other side of her attempts to be ‘best couple friends’.”

“Alright, fair enough,” Lily relents at that reminder.  For a moment, she goes back to concentrating on her watercolor daisies. 

Then Tracy blurts out to Robin, “But, just out of curiosity…how often _do_ you guys have sex?”

“You want an actual count?” Robin laughs.

With the same titillated interest she’s always displayed when discussing her friend’s much more varied and exciting sex life, Lily buzzes, “Yeah, Robin.  How often does Barney hit that?”

“It’s not like we’re keeping track.”  Lily gives her a knowing look and Robin changes it to, “Anymore.  It got too hard to keep count, okay.”

The redhead snickers.  “I bet it _did_ get hard.”

Robin grins, shooting her the side-eye.  “Seriously, Lily?” 

“What?  Barney isn’t the only one who can make dirty jokes.”

“I’m not looking for a precise number here,” Tracy offers helpfully.  “An average will do.  Just the normal frequency.”

“Fine.  I guess if I had to count it out….”  Robin pauses, considering it.  “There are the occasional misses if someone’s sick or our schedules are really crazy, or when it’s that time of the month, but generally speaking – ”

“Thanks for not saluting,” Lily interjects.

“ _On average_ ,” Robin glowers, changing up her phrasing, “I’d say Barney and I have sex…once a day?” 

They look at her like she’s just professed a belief in unicorns, making it clear she’s said something wrong.  At first she thinks they think it’s too low, and she clarifies, “Well, I mean, obviously, there are days when it’s _more_ than once.  It’s just _at least_ once a day.  It all depends on how we’re feeling or what we’re doing.  Especially on the weekends we tend to get in multiples, and – what?” Robin stops short when they’re still looking at her like she’s crazy.

“You two really have sex every day?” Tracy asks.

“ _Every_ day?” Lily reiterates.  “As in every single one?”

“Without skipping any cause you’re too tired or just not in the mood?” Tracy adds.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Even four years in?” Lily probes skeptically.

“Yes,” Robin responds, not sure why that’s so hard to believe.  Then she suddenly wonders if it makes _her_ the weird one here.  “Why?  Is that bad?  How often do you guys have sex?”

“Once a week,” Lily answers easily.  “Sunday afternoon.  We schedule it.”

A timed-out sexual romp the way you’d schedule a dentist appointment sounds awfully bleak to Robin, until Tracy answers, “About once every two or three weeks.”

Robin chokes on her wine.  “Every _three weeks_?  How did you ever manage to get pregnant again?” she sputters, referring to the news the couple just announced last month.

“Well, ovulation only occurs every four weeks anyway, so – ”

“Three _weeks_?” Robin cuts in, still shocked.  While she’d known that she and Barney are more active than most, she had no idea how little other couples are having sex.  “Three?  For real?” 

Tracy just nods and shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“How can you stand it?  It’s one thing when you’re single and you have to go out looking, but when your guy’s right there in bed with you, don’t you just wanna….”  Robin waggles her eyebrows meaningfully.

Lily ignores the question, still dwelling with equal astonishment on _her_ number.  “Every single day?” she inquiries disbelievingly.  “And sometimes _more_ than once?  That means you’re talking a good thirty-five, forty times a month.”

“Yes.  Is that really so weird?”

She’s met with loaded silence as Tracy and Lily exchange a look.

“Not weird,” Tracy offers kindly, “just – ”

“Unusual,” Lily helps out.

“But in a _good_ way,” Tracy is sure to stress.

“Yeah,” Lily nods, taking her cue.  “That’s – that’s good for you guys to have that…kind of physical connection and – Seriously though,” she cuts off, unable to keep up the pleasantries, “how can you still walk?” she wonders at the same time Tracy asks, “Don’t your lady parts get sore?”

 

* * *

  

The conversation still weighs on Robin’s mind later that night as she’s getting into bed.

“Do you think our marriage is too dependent on sex?” she asks Barney abruptly. 

“That was my _phone_ brushing your hip,” he swears, producing the offending iPhone from beneath the covers.  “I wasn’t making a move.”

“No, I know.”  She shakes her head.  “It’s just, when I was with Lily and Tracy, we got to talking about sex and – ” 

“La, la, la, la, la,” Barney hums loudly, his fingers already plugging his ears.  “I don’t want to hear it.  I still don’t know how you women can speak of such things!”

“No, Barney.  I’m not talking about – ”

“Did you at least tell them about the Canadian Howler?” he asks hopefully, referring to the new move he’d invented in Argentina that makes Robin’s eyes cross with pleasure every time and almost instantly takes her quite vocally over the edge, thus its name.

“Barney, would you just _listen_?” she says in exasperation, a tone that always gets him to focus.  “We weren’t talking specifics.  We were talking frequency.”

“Ah,” he says, now with a pretty good idea of where this is going.

“Do you know they barely have sex?”

He shrugs, unsurprised.  “Well, they have little kids.  What did you expect?”

“That’s what _I_ thought, that it was because of the kids.  But then I googled it on the way home and, according to some study, 47% of all married couples only have sex once or twice a _month_.  A month, Barney.  And that’s, like, half of married people.  It also said just 26% of couples do it even once-a-week.”

“Wow.”  Barney ponders the wretchedness of that.  “Really?” 

Robin nods.  “So is there something wrong with us?  Does our relationship rely too much on sex?”

“Robin, just because we get busy more – ”

“ _A lot_ more.”

“Fine, a lot more.  Poor sexless bastards.”  He shakes his head in pity.  “Doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with our relationship.  We were friends for almost eight years before we got married.  We weren’t having sex then.”

“That’s true.  Most of the time,” she smiles dryly, because ‘just friends’ or dating – each other or someone else – they always did have trouble keeping their hands off one another. 

“Most of the time,” he corrects, smirking.  “And there’s still no one I’d rather spend the day with.  Doing anything.  Not just sex.  The fact that we have such an active and _enjoyable_ ,” Barney growls to her playfully, “sex life is just a lucky bonus.”

“Mmm,” Robin hums her agreement.  “It’s a fantastic bonus.”

“Mm-hmm,” he concurs, kissing her.  “Now, has that set your mind at ease?”

“Yes,” she decides, lying back against the pillows, now stress-free.  “It’s their loss and our gain.”

“Exactly.”  He leans over to turn out the bedside lamp and her new artwork catches his eye from over on the desk.  “You know, you actually did a pretty nice job on that vase.”

“I know!” Robin beams.  “Who knew I was such a great artist?  Maybe _I_ should start selling paintings to dogs.”

Barney snorts, chuckling.  “And your emperor penguins mate for life,” he says, considering her pottery.  “That means they keep hittin’ it over and over again.  If they don’t get tired of it, why should we?”

“Right?  Who gets tired of a _great_ thing anyway?  Not me.”

Shutting off the light, Barney spoons up behind her, nuzzling his face into her neck.  “All this talk about sex,” he says suggestively, “has got me feeling kind of horny….”

Robin rolls over to face him, sliding her hands down his bare chest.  “Wanna enjoy that bonus now?”

“Hell yeah,” he enthuses, reaching for the bottom of her shirt.

Though unaware at the time, a month later, on Halloween, they end up enjoying that ‘fantastic bonus’ some more…..

It starts out innocently enough. 

Ever since Halloween 2011, Robin has zealously dressed up for the holiday, and it’s always been in a coordinating costume to his.  So, this year, Barney campaigns hard for them to go as Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood.  Robin, however, argues that unless he’s standing right beside her, no one will know who she is. 

Instead, the Saturday before Halloween, she brings home her own costume of choice to Barney’s dismay.  She laughs at her husband’s disappointment, assuring him, “You’ve already got me.  I _married_ you.  We don’t have to match every single year to prove it.  And you can still choose something that matches this if you want to.” 

“But I already have the Indy costume.”

“That’s because it’s part of our bedroom clothes,” she says slyly.

“I wouldn’t ruin it, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he promises her.

“It’s not.  I just saw this and liked it.”

Barney pouts at that.

“Trust me, you’re gonna love it too.”

“Yeah, like I loved the Mountie costume you tried to force me to wear?” he calls after her as she goes into the bedroom to change.

When she comes out in a Wonder Woman costume – complete with low cut red bustier, blue star-spangled miniskirt, and over-the-knee red and white striped high heeled boots – Barney is definitely not complaining.  Sexiness combined with American pride is his ultimate aphrodisiac. 

It all works out for the best, anyway, as he ends up going as an incredibly hot Star-Lord.

They spend Monday afternoon attending first the GNB and then WWN office Halloween parties.  After that, it’s out to Westchester to meet up with the gang at Ted’s place. 

They’re quite the brood now, with kids galore – Marvin four and half, Daisy almost three, Penny a year and a half – and Tracy four months pregnant, so it’s not exactly the rollicking good time they once would have had.

In fact, trick-or-treating is done before seven.  That leads to a discussion on how Halloween’s not like it used to be.  When they were young, it was at least dark when they went out!  Even the parents agree that it’s lame now. 

Not wanting to stick around just passing out candy to older kids while their godchildren have either fallen asleep or gone sugar-high hyper, Robin and Barney sneak out the back.

They decide to head to MacLaren’s and wind up dropping in on the rooftop party simply because by now it’s become a yearly tradition that _someone_ has to keep going.  But it too is pretty lame, mostly twentysomethings looking to hookup – and somehow _still_ The Shagarats continue to perform each year, and continue to suck beyond all words.

While debating how to save the evening, it comes up in conversation that Robin’s never been to Coney Island to enjoy their kitschy rides.  Barney insists they _must_ change that tonight.  With the way she’s dressed, it’s a no-brainer they’ve _got_ to get her on The Wonder Wheel.

And they do. 

It’s a cheesy, innocent goodtime – enjoying the rides, carnival foods, and seeing everyone’s costumes – until they’re boarding the Spook-a-Rama ride at just about the stroke of midnight.  That’s when things get interesting.

Robin has her hand on his leg, her fingers massaging further and further up his inner thigh from the moment the ride begins.  By the time they make the transitional turn back through the station, the edge of her pinkie finger is stroking him into hardness.

The very second they enter the darkened building, before the door has even closed behind them, she turns to him.  “Unzip your pants.”

“Okay,” he smirks, delighted.  A handjob from his wife on a dark ride on Halloween is just the sort of silly, teenage fun he could go for on a night like this.  But then she starts to squirm on the bench beside him, clearly meaning to get up.  “Holy – are we gonna?!  Right on the ride?”  His mind is blown with how incredible she is.

“Shh, shh-shh,” she quiets him, not wanting him to draw attention to them.  “Just unzip them.”

“You little minx,” Barney murmurs low, and she can tell by his tone he is _very_ into it.  “Robin, there’s a lap bar, though.  Maybe we should just – ”  He mimes with each hand, her jerking him off with the one hand, him fingering her with the other.

“No.  This is happening.  You’re banging me right here on the Spook-a-Rama.  Why do you think we’ve already ridden this ride twice?  Because it’s so awesome?  False.  It’s incredibly lame.  I was just scoping out the best spot for me to ride _you_.”

“Dear Lord, I love you!” Barney gushes.

Robin grins with pride.  “But we’ve got to hurry.  I timed it; we only have two and a half minutes.”

Luckily, she’s flexible and uses that to her advantage to squirm out from beneath the bar.  But despite the gap she managed to make it through, it’s much too close to Barney’s lap for her to squeeze between.  So she straddles his waist, bar and all, and he does his part to meet her, scooting down a bit on the seat so the right parts meet.

By ten seconds in, he’s inside of _her_ , and as the first screams of terror sound out in the darkness, Robin joins in with some moans of her own.  The cries of the ghouls mask their own groans and grunts as she increases their tempo.

When the strobe lights come on, they add a unique sensory element that somehow highlights the sensations, and Robin squeaks out a whimper of pleasure, gasping, “I’m _so_ close.”

He bucks up into her faster, the friction exquisite, and by the time fake spiders crawl in sheets down the wall, she’s coming hard, her body quivering against his.  Barney finishes right along with her, and ambling along gently on the track, it feels good for a moment just to have her arms around him, peaceful and content lying there on him while her heartbeat calms down from the rush. 

Until an animatronic skeletal ghoul jumps out of a shuttered window at them, reminding Robin they’re on a public ride and unless they want to get arrested for lewd and lascivious conduct they have about fifty seconds to get their clothes back in place and her back on the bench beneath the lap bar.

Once they’ve righted themselves – in the nick of time, just as they can see a crack of neon lights between the two approaching doors – Barney tells her, “That was _awesome_!  Talk about a fantastic bonus.  Dude….”  He shakes his head in wonder.  “Was I ever right about you from the very first moment I saw you.”

“You were?” Robin sighs, still riding the dreamy post-orgasm high.  “What about?” she asks, blinking against the sudden increase in light as they burst back outside.

“You like it all _kinds_ of dirty!  I _love_ that about our marriage!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a real ride and if you search the name on Youtube you can see some videos from a rider's perspective to see that each part I described actually exists on the ride, timed out accordingly.


	5. 2016 (Part Five)

* * *

**December 10 th**

* * *

 

James and Tom are getting remarried today, and of all the Saturday mornings _this_ was the one she got called in to work unexpectedly – so early, in fact, that Barney wasn’t even out of bed. 

And now it’s clear she’s not going to make it to the wedding on time either.

“I’m sorry,” Robin tells him over the phone.  “It’s this Drumpf madness.  Once-in-a-lifetime – and not in a good way.  But what are you gonna do?  I _have_ to follow the story.  I feel like I’m not truly doing my job until he calls WWN ‘fake news’.”

“Give him hell, baby.”

“I’m going to try.  But it means you’ll have to go to the vow renewal without me.  I’ll try to make it there by the reception.”  When Barney doesn’t respond right away, she adds, “I know how important this day is to the family, and I know this sucks, but I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Listening…I always love hearing the word ‘suck’ and promises of favors to me in the same sentence.”

“Hm.  I was thinking more along the lines of laser tag.”

“As much as I love the game, it doesn’t beat a blowie.”

Robin grins.  She knew he would say that, and likely he knew that she knew he would say it, but he doesn’t know about her ace in the hole.  “Not even the national laser tag championship in Spokane?”

Barney gasps.  “You’ll really do the NLTC with me next month?”  The elation is clear in his voice even through the phone. 

“It’ll be tough getting the time off, but for you I’ll make it happen…And if you play your cards right, maybe you’ll get that other thing too once we get back to the hotel.”

“Oooh,” he hums with interest, “but why wait until the hotel?  How about _at_ the tournament?” 

“Now you’re pressing your luck.”  He gives a dirty chuckle and it makes Robin laugh.  “What is it with you and laser tag?”

“Like it doesn’t turn you on, too.  Remember that time a few years ago, right before the hurricane, when we set that trap in the tunnel room?” Barney reminds her.  “You were all over me.  And we weren’t even together.”

“That is _not_ how it happened…..”

 

* * *

**August 2011**

* * *

 

It’s late.

It’s late all around.  Late at night, late in the month of August, late in the entire summer, and late in the fierce battle of laser tag they’re currently waging against a persistent gaggle of twelve-year-olds who refuse to bow to their awesome and just admit defeat.

One such punk gets the foolish idea to try to ambush them, jumping out from the traffic cone he’d been hiding behind, and they make quick work of him.  Barney shoots at him from the left; Robin comes at him from the right, diving over one of those dark rubber barriers they’d once hid behind on their very first game together and landing in a barrel roll to execute the perfect takedown shot.  In the end, the kid gets it double, definitely out of the game.

Barney laughs tauntingly as the boy skulks away and then turns to Robin, grinning.  “That was legendary!” 

His eyes darken as they peruse her body, and she gets the feeling he’s imagining something on her other than her peep toe sandals, dark wash denim capris, and grey sleeveless cowl neck top – very likely he’s imagining her in nothing at all. 

Her suspicions are confirmed when a second later, he adds, “Do you know how sexy you’d look dressed as Lara Croft?  Hot, smart, total badass in dark tight clothes with long bare legs and guns strapped to each thigh…I could _so_ put it into that.”

“As charming as that come-on is, we’re not dating anymore,” Robin replies, “so I don’t have to do your weird sexual fantasies.”

He gives her the side-eye.  “Like you didn’t have plenty of weird sexual fantasies of your own.”

“A Mountie is classic, not weird.”

“And the whole Zamboni operator thing?” Barney asks, mischief dancing in his eyes. 

She audibly scoffs.  “We both know you wanted that as much as I did.”

“Yeah, but just to help complete my list of vehicles you can have sex in/on.”

“Either way,” she points out, “a good time was had by all.”

“ _Yeah_ it was.”

He takes a step closer to her and that combined with the expression on his face makes Robin’s heart flutter pleasantly – a reaction that leads her to remark, for her own benefit as much as his, “But that was two years ago.”

A beat goes by without Barney putting any further space between them.  Tellingly, while she doesn’t close the sliver between them, she doesn’t move back either. 

“So, no Lara Croft then?” he finally asks.

Robin rolls her eyes, smirking.  “Like I said, we’re not sleeping together anymore, so….” 

“And who’s fault is that?”  He gives her such an over the top leering look that it can’t be anything other than intentional.

“Idiot,” she retorts, laughing as she nudges him forward.  “Now come on, let’s take down these brats.”

They agree to split up to hunt down the remaining kids.  Within ten minutes, Robin winds up in the tunnel facing the arena’s final room, a dead-end where the only way out is the same way you came in.  Without even looking, she senses Barney’s presence; the slight, almost imperceptible rustle of silk tie against laser tag vest also didn’t hurt.  “Come on down.  It’s only me,” she says.

Barney swings down from the ceiling with the agility of a spider monkey, landing directly in front of her.  Robin doesn’t even flinch.

“A great ambush spot, right?” he brags proudly.  “Picking kids off from above.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before!”

Thus reunited, they collectively take stock, adding up the hits they made on their own to determine that just three kids are left:  the ones they’ve dubbed Wendy, because of her flaming red hair and likewise to the burger chain mascot; Buzz Cut, for obvious reasons; and Ted Jr., because he looks just like him.  Problem is, these particular three are smart enough to know when they’re bested, yet too stubborn to give up.  Worse still, going by Barney’s last surveillance of them from his raised perspective, it seems they’ve teamed up against the adults.  Smart move.  Their only hope, really.  But Team Scherbatsky-Stinson has years’ worth of experience on their side. 

“The SS is not about to be bested by a few prepubescents upstarts!”

“Barney, I told you, you’ve _got_ to stop calling us that,” Robin objects.

Ultimately, they conclude that waiting the kids out from the safety of a makeshift bunker is the best course of action, opting to use the entire last room as that bunker/lure.  It’s Barney’s idea to devise a sort of bobby trap – he takes much delight in repeatedly calling it that – to alert them the second anyone comes into the room.  Robin comes up with the mythology:  using string from Barney’s emergency sewing kit along with one of his keys to rig a trip line that when set off makes the key fall to the ground with a clatter, thus allowing them to get the jump on the stunned trio.  All they have to do in the meantime is lie in wait to pick them off. 

They pass the time discussing their friends, her work, nothing and everything that somehow morphs into a lively debate over the legitimacy of pineapple as a pizza topping.

“You can’t just dismiss something without trying it, Robin.  I’ve always said you have to give things a chance.  How do you _know_ you won’t enjoy a threesome with a Japanese sex robot if you never give it a try?”

“That’s what I said to you about my strap– ”

“We _did_ try that.”

“And you loved it.”

“Which is exactly my point!”

“Okay,” Robin grants him with a smile, conceding he does have something there, “but how _could_ I give it a chance under those circumstances?  I was never going to find it enjoyable when you just laid it on top of me while I was sleeping.”

Barney shrugs like he doesn’t see the problem.  “I wanted you to wake up to the sensation.”

She chuckles at that and ponders, amused, “Of a Japanese sex robot?”

“Yeah, well, it worked for you plenty of times when _I_ was the one laying on top of you…” he counters, moving into her space with that look in his eyes.  “You even asked me to – ”

“Shh,” she cuts him off suddenly, her eyes shooting to the doorway.  In a split second, she reverses their positions, pushing him against the wall and behind her just as the key falls to the ground with a clatter.  Then – _phew_! _phew_! _phew_! – she picks off the three kids in quick secession as they attempt to scatter into hiding. 

Hanging their heads in defeat, Buzz Cut, Wendy, and Ted Jr. trickle, vanquished, out of the tunnel to Barney’s shouts of, “Aw, that’s right!  You losers better head back to Mommy!” 

Robin reaches her hand over her shoulder for him to high five, which he does, wrapping his other arm around her waist from behind, caught up in a wave of excitement.  “As much as we all tease you for being a gun nut, that was _super-hot_.” 

Giggling delightedly, she turns around to face him. 

“You just saved my life,” he utters dramatically, an intentional callback to their very first game. 

She smirks and rather than replying with ‘Thank me later’, as before, answers more boldly.  “Now you owe me.” 

Barney’s smile warms, going distinctly flirtatious, and his eyes slowly peruse her face, drifting down to her lips.  “What did you have in mind?” he wonders suggestively.

That tone combined with that look makes her stomach go all wiggly, her body flushing, blood pulsing hot and low in response.  Instinctively, her left hand moves to rest against his chest.  After that, she can’t help herself; it’s like her body just takes over.  In lieu of lapels, her fingers curl into the V of his laser tag vest.  When her right hand steals up further, gliding over the softness of his shirt where the vest doesn’t cover, Barney exhales a kind of low rasping sound in the back of his throat and his hands go to her hips, drawing her in against him.  The contact causes Robin’s heart to beat faster and as she moves her hand up to his open collar all she can think is, mercifully, there’s no tie tonight, no barrier between them.  Two fingers slip inside against bare skin and her breath catches a second before she takes hold of the fabric and tugs him towards her.

That barest of moments seems to play out forever.  She’s anticipating blissful contact any second – his soft, warm mouth against hers – but instead the overhead lights switch on bright and blinding.  They both blink against the abrupt, harsh glare as their pupils acclimate. 

When the dots in her vision clear, she looks over to see the arena’s manager – the new one who’d taken command since 2009, after Barney eventually drove the Murtaugh guy out – walking over to them, his hands on his hips in a show of authority mixed with frustration.  “Game’s over.  Everyone else already came out,” he barks.  “I told you guys before, if you want to do that in here you’ve got to rent out the entire arena.”

Robin’s eyes go unconsciously to the tunnel, his rebuke calling to mind the time when Barney did just that back when they were dating but not calling it that yet.  They played strip laser tag, an aggressive battle even though they both knew going in that, no matter the victor, it would inevitably end the same way.  She had a slight lead, down to her bra and panties versus Barney in just his boxers, when he cornered her, kissing her senseless until she pulled him down onto the floor and they had sex right there in the tunnel.  In the end, Robin was deemed the victor; Barney got her bra off, making them even, but Robin was the first to strip him of his underwear, without a single objection from him.  As hot as that was, it was possibly even hotter when they watched it later that night after Barney bought the security camera footage.

She doesn’t know if it’s the manager’s accusation now or the old memory, but Robin feels her face coloring and she quietly responds, “We weren’t doing anything.”

“Mm-hmm,” he declares cynically, “and I don’t spend half my life cleaning up spilled soda and nachos from the game room floor.”

“You gotta get out more, McAdams,” Barney shoots back.

“And you two need to go home and just do each other already.  Cause this thing you’ve got going on in the meantime is making the tweens’ hormones go crazy.”  He shakes his head in aggravation.  “Hell, the last time you were here together I caught our security guy beating off just watching you two and listening to your sexy banter.”

“ _That’s_ why you fired Julio?” Barney replies, dismayed.  He’d been truly sad to see the long-timer go.

Once they’re kicked out of laser tag – “Big loss,” Barney claims, “they were closing anyway” – they decide to head to the bar to see if Ted’s had any success with his date.

There’s a little bit of small talk, though mostly they walk in companionable silence through the city streets.  But when they’re almost there, Robin can’t fight the impulse to know where Barney’s head is at any longer.  “What do you…” she begins tentatively, “what do you think about McAdams?”

“Great bro,” Barney answers offhandedly, “but he hasn’t gotten laid since his wife left him.  Too desperate for it; ladies pick up on that.”

Robin nods in agreement.  “That explains what he said.”  She steals a glance at him under the streetlight.  “Because, otherwise, that was just crazy talk.”  Barney looks over at her now and she darts her eyes away, fixing them straight ahead.  “You and I are….friends,” she settles on, but it immediately sounds wrong, a lie, not nearly enough.  “Okay, _exes_ ,” she allows.  “But now….”

“Close friends,” Barney finishes for her.

“Yeah.”  She stops moving on the sidewalk just before the shamrock green “MacLaren’s Pub” sign and chances to turn to him.  He’s looking back at her steadily.  Their gazes meet and cling, and something inside her pulls tight.  “Just….very close friends.” 

This very close friend wants nothing more than to take her to bed right now, and Barney has a feeling she wants it too.  “Unless – ”

“Robin!”

Somewhere in the exchange, a cab had pulled up unnoticed at the curb beside them.  Now it just so happens to be Lily and Marshall getting out of it.

“Hey,” Robin answers, stepping back from Barney.  “I thought you guys were dedicating tonight to ‘making a baby’.”

“Turns out I got the dates wrong,” Lily explains.  “I’m not ovulating until next week.”

“We did it anyway, real quick, just to be sure,” Marshall quips.

“Is there any _other_ way you do it but ‘real quick’?” Barney ribs him, and the two fall into friendly male one-upmanship as they head down the steps into the bar.

Robin starts to follow them when Lily holds her back.  “What was that about just now?” she asks suspiciously.

“Nothing,” Robin denies, all innocence.

Lily’s scrutinizing stare rakes over her face.  “Where’s the poop, Robin?” 

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re lying!” the redhead accuses.

“No, I’m not.  It was nothing.”

“Are you sure?  Cause when we pulled up, before you knew we were there, it looked like things were getting kind of chummy….”

“Uh, we were walking to the bar having a conversation,” Robin mocks.

“You were stopped out on the sidewalk, gazing into each other’s eyes.”

Robin laughs, scoffing.  “I have _never_ gazed into Barney’s eyes,” she claims, this time fully aware it’s a lie.

“Oh, come on!  You dated for months.”

“It wasn’t his eyes I was gazing at,” Robin rejoins.

“Hey-oh!” Lily approves.  “Although, you know, that answer really doesn’t help your cause.”

Changing the subject to distract her, because she learned misdirection from the best, Robin tells her, “So I heard at work there’s this little place uptown selling Jimmy Choo’s half off.”

Lily’s eyes light up and anything else is instantly forgotten….

 

 

* * *

  **December 2016**

* * *

 

“See?” Barney gloats.  “All over me.”

“You were all over me, too.”

“ _Yeah_ , I was,” he owns it proudly.  “Every chance I got.”  Barney chuckles softy to himself.  “You know, a year later when I was doing “The Robin” and we were at Step 4?”

“‘Robin goes nuts’,” she recites helpfully.  “Yes, I seem to recall.”

“I knew I had you when you walked in dressed as Lara Croft.”

“I was _sure_ that outfit would get you into bed, and devastated when you turned me down again.”

“Well, I remembered the night McAdams caught us and how you said you’d only do my ‘weird’ sex fantasies if we were dating.  Then there you were, doing my sex fantasy.”  She can hear the smile in his voice.  “It gave me a lot of hope….And something to picture that night when I was strummin’ it.”

“Mmm, that’s my sweet husband,” she teases, and he cackles shamelessly.  “I wasn’t sure you’d remember telling me – and at that point I was desperate enough not to care if you did.  But a few weeks earlier, walking back from Splitsville when I stopped and put my hand on your chest, the way you looked down so deliberately, I was afraid you were on to me then.”

“I was,” Barney confirms.  “You putting your hand on my chest was always sexual, I knew that.  And just like that night at laser tag, and the night we danced at Punchy’s wedding, it usually meant you were ready to escalate things.”  

“I’m feeling ready to escalate them right now,” Robin tells him suggestively.  “Too bad I’m stuck at work for at least another two hours.”  When she speaks again her voice is soft and naughty, and he can hear the sound of rustling through the phone.  “Tell me….what are you wearing?”

“Your hand’s inside your blouse right now, isn’t it?”

She makes a throaty sound, half amusement, half pleasure.  “It’s a stress relief.  Just tell me.”

He’s got twenty minutes before Ranjit arrives.  Barney smirks lustfully.  “Better yet, switch to Skype….”

 

* * *

 

Midway through the reception, James finds Barney at the bar about to order a drink and beats him to it.  “He’ll have a Glen McKenna 35-year, neat,” he instructs the bartender.

“Actually, sir, we don’t stock that brand.”

“Well, please see if you can’t scrounge some up.”  James leans in with a conspiratorial wink.  “It’s for the groom.”

Looking significantly more impressed, the young man nods.  “Of course, sir.  Right away.”  The bartender scurries off to find his boss, and while they wait for Barney’s drink, the two turn back to the reception hall. 

Tom shoots James a smile from across the room.  Watching him twirl Sadie to her favorite song from that Trolls movie leaves James all warm and content inside, filled with the unmistakable – grateful – feeling that his whole life has led up to this moment.  “How did we both get so lucky?” he wonders aloud to his brother.

“Good looks and amazing sexual stamina,” Barney replies without missing a beat.

“I’m serious.  Here I am, two kids and back with my husband despite almost foolishly throwing it all away.  And there you are, going on four years into marriage with the woman of your dreams.”

“We are lucky,” Barney admits with a satisfied smile.  “So much for the Stinson curse.  The Stinson men have got it _made_.”

“I remember a time when that wasn’t always the case.”

“Yeah.”  Barney nods in agreement.  “You really almost blew it, bro,” he says, giving him a heartening pat on the shoulder.

James laughs, shaking his head at his incorrigible younger sibling.  “I was talking about _you_.  Do you know just a few weeks ago was five years to the day from that night you strolled into my place, drunk off your ass and pouring your heart out about how Robin would never choose you.”  James shudders at his own poor judgement for allowing this next part.  “Then a day or so later you tried to pass my daughter off as yours.  And, weirdly enough, Ted’s.”

“Hey, I didn’t do a bad job.  You got her back in one piece.  And I still think you should have called her Hurricane.” 

“You bought her wee-wee pads instead of diapers,” James reminds him.  “It’s a _great_ thing you and Robin aren’t having kids.  Besides, it was never about kids.  It was about how much you loooove her,” he taunts his brother like they’re kids again and he’s accusing them of sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

“I should have kept my mouth shut,” Barney grumbles, embarrassed.  “But I think that was the birth of Truth Serum Drunk…..”

 

* * *

**November 2011**

* * *

 

He had a post-Robin plan in place. 

Sure, it was a spur of the moment, three scotches in plan, but it was a plan.  The love of his life turned him down.  Flat-out.  Even after he made a move, made a plea, she still chose another man. 

Okay then.  It was a devastating blow, but he’d rally.  What choice did he have?  So if he couldn’t have the wife part of the dream equation everyone tries to sell you on – husband and wife and baby makes three – he supposed he’d just have to take the kid part of it. 

In this day and age, bros could raise a baby together.  Him and Ted, the kid, his two hot nannies and the family pet cobra; he had it all worked out.  But then:  _I can’t adopt a baby with you, Barney.  We don’t even have one yet and you’re already a terrible father._ Dammit, Ted. 

He can’t do this alone.  He can’t _be_ alone.  That was the whole point.

Because when he’s alone, it’s bad.  When he’s alone, he relives it over and over again.  He sees her there, shaking her head ‘no’.  He feels that devastating pain and rejection all over again.  Only somehow even worse now that it’s no longer such a shock, such an out-of-nowhere blow.  Now he sees it from a few steps back, something you’d think would make it better but in reality is actually harsher still.  Because along with that pain of rejection comes the clear sense of _aching_ loss now that there’s been hours, days, and weeks to vividly consider the alternative.  Now that there’s been time – too much tortured time – spent imagining all that might have been, could have easily been with her had Robin only come in alone, had she only shaken her had ‘yes’, had she only gone back upstairs with him to her candlelit, rose-covered bedroom.

When he’s alone, that’s when the stark realization slaps him in the face over and again that, despite the passing weeks, the pain, the longing, and the loss, none of it’s getting any better.  When he’s alone, he has to face the certain knowledge that it never will.  It will _never_ stop hurting because he will _never_ stop being in love with her.  Lord knows he’s tried.  He’s tried a million times in a million different ways to make it stop – and all he has to show for it is knowing now more than ever that loving Robin is as much an ingrained part of him as the need to breathe. 

The only strategy for existence, the _only_ coping mechanism he has is to simply never be alone, never be left by himself with all those thoughts, images, and feelings.  It’s about self-preservation at this point.  Alone is out of the question; that’s all there is to it. 

So after Ted shot down his baby plan, somehow of its own volition, Barney’s body took him to his brother’s place.  Because James may be annoyed, but he’ll let him in.  Ending up on his brother’s doorstep in the middle of the night, utterly without a thought of what to do or say, isn’t exactly a solid plan but knowing James _will_ open the door and welcome him inside means that at least for one more night, if only for a few more hours, Barney has a distraction to chase the ghost of her away.

James opens the door to find his brother, obviously drunk, and he heaves a weary sigh he doesn’t bother to hide.  The only reason he was even up at this hour is because Sadie is teething.  A grumpy baby won’t go to sleep so he can’t either, the way his husband and son already are.  It’s just his luck that their daughter seems to have a keen sense of when it’s his turn on overnight duty and always chooses that time to act up the most.

Stepping aside, James gestures him inside, closing the door behind them but not without asking, “What’s going on, Barney?  What are you doing here at this hour?”

“Ted is a jerk.  _Life_ is a jerk.”  Barney slumps down onto his brother’s couch and reveals quietly but with a shocking level of candor, “And I’m not sure I can take it anymore.”

That response startles James enough to view the situation more seriously.  Over the next ten minutes, he wheedles out of Barney the gist of this evening’s events leading up to his late-night trip here.  Though it’s far from adding up, one thing is clear:  Barney is extremely _,_ completely, almost impossibly drunk – drunker than James has _ever_ seen him, and that’s saying alot.  Past Richard Dawson Drunk, past Big Plans with Strangers Drunk, past Marcel Marceau Drunk.  This is even beyond Jabba Drunk.  And throughout his tale of the evening, Barney’s mood vacillates between sulking, angry, and miserably depressed, near despairing. 

It leaves James concerned enough to hand over the baby, hoping her cubby little cheeks and currently – since he applied the baby Orajel – contented demeanor will cheer Barney up too. 

But it’s been another five minutes and it isn’t working, so he sits down beside his brother, taking Sadie back onto his own lap so there won’t be any convenient distractions.  “Barney, no more runaround; what is this really about?”

“Told you.  Ted’s being a jerk.”

“I know that’s what you told me, but it’s not the truth.”

“It is.”

“Okay, maybe Ted _is_ being a jerk, but that’s not what’s got you so upset.  _This_ ,” James waves a hand over him, so morose and out of character there’s even a winkle in his suit coat.  “This isn’t about Ted.”  He studies his brother closely with the keen, perceptive eyes of someone who’s known him – the _real_ him – since Barney took his first breath, and James reaches the incontrovertible conclusion, “This is girl problem.”

Barney looks away with cagy reluctance.

“Ah-ha!  I’m right.  Of course, I’m right,” James congratulates his own shrewd acuity.  “This kind of bitter anger mixed with despondency _has_ to be about a girl.” 

“Doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure that out,” Barney tries, dismission and misdirection always a go-to.  “I did just go through a breakup.”

That reminder gives James pause, but only half a second’s worth – because he’d already forgotten Barney had a breakup, forgotten he’d even had a girlfriend.  “Yeah, but this isn’t about Nora.”  James shakes her head with certainty.  No way is this about a woman who altered Barney so little that her existence in his life, only a few weeks past, was able to entirely slip James’ mind.  “You didn’t even care about Nora this much when she was around.  No.  This is something else….”  He looks his agitated brother up and down consideringly.  “And it’s serious.  I haven’t seen you this upset since – ”

“I know,” Barney stops him, feeling like he’s taking back the power if _he_ says it first, “since Shannon.”  He’s already thought about it, already seen the harshly ironic similarities of how he keeps ending up in the same position:  playing the fool for a woman he dares to care about, yet who never loves him in that same way.  “But if you’re going to tell me to go find a girl and have sex with her ASAP – ”

“Actually, I was going to say I haven’t seen you this upset since you and _Robin_ broke up.”

“Oh.”

That ‘oh’ said more than his younger brother realizes.  This isn’t just Barney upset like he was with Robin; this is still _about_ Robin, James is sure of it.  “And I wasn’t going to tell you to run out and have sex with some girl ASAP.  I never should have said that.  That was _terrible_ advice.”

“I already tried it, anyway,” Barney shrugs.  “It doesn’t work.”

James snorts.  “You can’t exactly count Rhonda ‘Man Maker’ French.”

“I meant I’ve tried it _again_.  More recently.”

“As in tonight?” James asks, his features contorted in disgust.  “I hope you washed your hands; you touched my baby.”

“No, not tonight,” Barney replies, slightly insulted.  “Not since – ”  He stops himself just before saying ‘not since the night with Robin’.  James doesn’t need to know he hasn’t had sex since the night – correction, one _time_ ; she didn’t even stay the night – with Robin made him foolish enough to think they’d have a future beyond that.

“You tried it back when Robin broke up with you?” James guesses.

Barney scoffs bitterly.  “Robin didn’t break up _with_ me.  It was mutual.”  But for all that sudden bluster, the wind goes out of his sails just as swiftly.  Because it’s hard to remember; it was hard to even know at the time.  “I think….It all happened so fast.”

James approaches the subject carefully.  It’s one he’s learned over the years is not a topic generally open to discussion.  “But that was three years ago.  Come on, mon petit frère blanc,” he gently coaxes.  “Tell me what’s going on now.”

At first it seems like he’s not going to answer at all, but then Barney takes a deep, heavy breath.  “It’s just…”  He sighs, and there’s such pure pain in it that James feels it too.  “I used to think maybe the problem was that I hadn’t tried hard enough.  That if I had just been willing to put myself out there more, things would have turned out differently – could _still_ turn out differently.” 

James watches as he shakes his head resentfully, raging against ‘the problem’, or his luck, most likely just himself, maybe love in general.

“But now, I _did_ put myself out there.  And – ”  Barney looks away, but it’s too late; James already saw the tears – honest to God tears – in his brother’s eyes.  “It didn’t matter.  _I_ didn’t matter.” 

The room is quiet, even Sadie seems to feel the solemnity.  The only sound that breaks the silence is that of one lone sniff as Barney struggles to hold it together.  “I’m damned if I don’t, and damned if I do.  I go around saying ‘Barney Stinson always wins’, but I only say that because he doesn’t,” Barney discloses.  “I don’t.  I _can’t_.  I can’t ever win.  Not with the stuff that really matters.  So now, along with the punch to the gut of rejection, I get to look like a total fool to her.”

“You put yourself out there with Robin?” James asks cautiously. 

Barney ignores the question, off on his own train of thought.  “Except that I’m _not_ a fool,” he says indignantly, with a resurgence of bitter anger.  “Because what else was I _supposed_ to think?”  At one point in the heart of it, he was thrusting into her, kissing the junction where her neck meets her shoulder, and Robin had suddenly lifted his head, cupped his face with both hands and stopped for a moment just to look into his eyes, as if she was savoring the fact that it really was him.  He’d savored it too, until he could take no more of stopping.  Until he’d leaned in to the point where their lips where almost touching, a hairbreadth apart.  Until _she_ could take no more herself and desperately pulled him in the rest of the way.  “When a woman kisses you like her very life depends on it, when she clings to you while you’re making love and whispers your name over and over again like it’s the only thing that matters, you can’t blame a guy for thinking she might feel the same way.”

James eyebrows go up at that.  “You slept with Robin?  Recently?”  And then it hits him.  “ _Ohh_.”  He should have seen it sooner; it makes so much sense now.  “ _That’s_ why you and Nora – ”  But then James looks over at Barney, a sad broken man, and reminds himself this isn’t about what does or doesn’t make sense to _him_ ; it’s about his brother hurting.  “Sorry.  Continue.”

Barney shrugs again, shaking his head wearily.  “It doesn’t matter.  None of it mattered.  It didn’t matter that I was ready to go for it – with candles and rose petals and…. _everything_ …. proposals even.  But it didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter if I’ve been thinking about marriage and kids and the whole white picket fence thing.  Because she doesn’t want that.”  He lets out a lone, embittered huff of laughter.  “Or she wants it with _him_.  That’s how it seemed anyway, with the way they showed up together, quite the happy couple.  It didn’t matter how good it was with us in bed the night before.  But that’s the thing she never gets wrong:  screwing me,” he says, a double entendre laced with cynical, black humor – because screwing him in bed or screwing him over, they both seem to be something she specializes in.

“I’m sorry, Barney,” James says.  He doesn’t know what else he can say.

“But it’s okay,” Barney sloughs it off.  “Who needs women, right?  Not me.”

“Oh, so you’re switching teams?” James retorts with a trace of amusement at what has to be the drunkenness talking, since Barney Stinson is all about the lady bits.  “Take it from me, that won’t work.”

“No.”  Barney shakes his head.  “We already decided we can’t be gay.”

“ _What_?” his brother laughs.

“And all the scotch in Scotland can’t fix this.  Scotch, tequila, rum….Hennessy, Jack, Jim, Johnny – tried ‘em all.  No luck.”

James smirks.  “I thought you said you _weren’t_ going to be gay.”  Barney doesn’t laugh or smile or react in any way.  Maybe humor isn’t always the best medicine, James concludes.  “Sorry,” he apologizes, “I know you were talking about alcohol.  It’s just been awhile since I had the chance to hang out with Drunk Barney.  You started doing a string of consciousness of names, and for a second there I thought I’d lost you to Jabba Drunk.  Okay.  Go on.  So you have a solution figured out?”

Barney nods.  “We can’t be gay, but we _can_ be dads.  Look at you.”  He gestures to the way James is bouncing his daughter in his lap, carefully holding the gummy teether in place near her mouth while simultaneously fully focusing on his conversation with his brother.  “You’ve got Eli and Sadie.  Kids mean you’ll _never_ be alone.  Someone will always be there to love you.  Cuz that’s what kids do,” he says, watching the way his niece snuggles into her papa.  “They just love you.  Unconditionally.  And they never hurt you.  There are no surprises with kids.  They don’t wake up the next morning and decide they want another dad instead of you.  They’re not fickle.  They can’t break your heart the way a woman can.”

“Actually, kids are very fickle.  Just take Eli; one day it’s SpongeBob, the next he’s all about Phineas and Ferb.  The day after that, everything is the Avengers and Captain America.   It just shows that – I love you, Barney, but you don’t know the first thing about being a dad.  A fun uncle?  Yes?  But a dad is there in the trenches, and it’s far from love and support and happy times 24/7.  Just wait until they get in the double digits.  A kid will say ‘I hate you’ more times than they’ll say ‘I love you’.  Being a dad can be a thankless task.  It requires a lot of you and takes a lot out of you.” 

Caring for a baby is hard work, Barney gets that, but it doesn’t dissuade him.  Working his way up the ladder at AltruCell was hard work too, but that didn’t stop him.  “So let me try then.  Let me babysit Sadie for a while on my own, learn what it’s like to be a dad.”

“Barney, you’re wasted.  There’s no way I’m handing over an infant into your care.” 

“Not now, when I’ve sobered up.”

James shakes his head ‘no’.  “And I’m sorry if this comes off sounding harsh, but you can’t just adopt a kid because you’re lonely and sad and heartbroken.  That’s not going to fix anything.  A kid can’t replace the woman that you’re longing for.”

Not even deep down but right there at the surface, Barney knows James is right.  Because even after everything, how much she’s hurt him – broken him – if he had the ability to blink his eyes and make Robin appear in this room with him right now, he would want that.  Even at the same time that it hurts him to see her, he would want to see her, _feel better_ seeing her, feel love seeing her.  Even still, even now. 

That’s the thing; he will _always_ want her.  Always be ready, willing, waiting to jump at the smallest sign of an opening from her, the smallest chance for them to be together again, a chance that she’ll choose him this time – even though he knows she is _never_ going to choose him.

“Parent-child love is completely different from romantic love.  One won’t stop the pining for the other,” James goes on, as if reading his mind.  “I’m sorry, Barney, but all the babies in the world aren’t going to stop you from loving her.”

Barney tries not to hear his lecture, definitely refuses to listen to his advice, though he knows the truth of what his brother is saying.  Being with Robin, dating her at all, changed him.  He can’t forget what that was like, being that much in love and having that other person love you _back_.  He’ll carry that with him forever.  That feeling, that contentment, that bliss is something he will always long for.  And no pet, no bro, no bimbo, no baby can erase that longing.  James is absolutely right. 

But that’s a bleak future.  Too bleak to accept, so he won’t.  Can’t.  He’s got to try them all, try every last way to escape his fate.  So he focuses on making faces at Sadie, because babies are cute in a way that can make you feel better for a least a little while.

“Why am I even bothering?”  James sighs, shaking his head regretfully at the way Barney is ignoring him.  “You’re not going to remember any of this in the morning, anyway.”

But he does.  And he insists that James go along with the babysitting trial.  Two days later, Barney picks up Sadie early Thanksgiving morning and arranges for James and Tom to take her back that night after dinner at Lily and Marshall’s new house out on Long Island.

 

* * *

**December 2016**

* * *

 

“It doesn’t really matter how much you blabbed that night,” James shrugs off his brother’s discomfort.  “The secret was out long before then that you’re crazy about Robin.”

“Not to her, it wasn’t.  She once thought she was just another number to me.”

“Women.”  James shakes his head.  “That’s why I swing the other way.” 

“As I recall, you advised me against trying that.”

“Your penis advised you against it.”

“True that,” Barney smirks. 

“But it all worked out,” James muses.  “Suffering through and fighting that hard to be with Robin payed off in the end.  Now look how deliriously happy you are.”

“Me _and_ my penis.”

“It’s the only way,” James grins, slapping his brother on the back before going off to rejoin Tom.

Barney barely registers his departure because in that same second Robin walks through the door looking fifty shades of lovely. 

She has her hair pinned up loosely but attractively.  It was probably a hurried attempt in the cab on the way over from the studio.  Still, it shows off her neck and makes her look like a million bucks.  She’s changed out of her WWN clothes into a sapphire blue, cap-sleeve sheath dress that hugs her figure in all the right places, and with the added heels her legs look like they go on for miles, making him want them wrapped around his hips.  “Definitely worth waiting for,” he murmurs to himself. 

When she spots him across the room, her eyes light up, and even years in it triggers a funny little skip in the beat of his heart.  “Baby!” he calls to her.

“Hey, you,” she smiles.  “I made it.”

They hurry to each other and he pulls her right into a deep kiss.  Several moments later, when they finally come up for air, Robin sighs contentedly.  “Mmm, what was that for?”

“You look incredible in that dress.  _So_ hot.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”  She glides her hand down to his chest, leaning in and letting her breath blow warm against his ear as she whispers, “But then you’ve already had ample proof of how good I think you look in this suit.”

Barney shivers and his hands grip her hips tighter, but just then Marshall arrives at their side, out of breath and clearly freaking out.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” he exclaims.

“Marshall,” Lily says, catching up to him, “what is it?”

“Dude!  _Dude_!!” Marshall says to Barney.  “It’s your premonition.”

Barney looks at him oddly.  “What are you talking about?”

“Like, way back, when Ted made that failed architecture firm – ”

“Mosbius Designs,” Barney fills in with a laugh, remembering the old viral video, wondering how he could have ever forgotten to make fun of Ted for that daily.

“Yeah,” Marshall continues, “and Robin was sleeping with Ted’s assistant, and it made you crazy enough with jealousy to talk to me about it.”

“What’s your point?” Barney wonders, still hating PJ’s guts.  What kind of a name is PJ anyway?

“Don’t you remember what you said to me at the bar?  I said ‘I already knew that you’re in love with Robin’ because Lily told me – plus, you know, it was _super_ obvious,” Marshall adds, the second one to tell him so in the past ten minutes.  “Then you tried to claim that you didn’t actually love her, you just missed her when she’s not around, thought about her all the time – and here’s the big part!” he says with barely contained excitement.  “You said, ‘I imagine us one day running to each other in slow motion while I’m wearing a brown suede vest.’  This,” Marshall sputters, so thrilled he can hardly get it out, “this is that ‘one day’!”  He turns to Lily.  “They just ran to each other.  And look!” Marshall squeals, wide-eyed and bouncing with enthusiasm.  “ _Babe_.  He’s even wearing a brown vest!”

Barney disentangles himself from Robin to look down at his outfit.  He’d ditched his sport coat early on at the reception, so his vest _is_ fully on display, but – “Uh, this is _not_ suede.”  It may be brown – more of a dark shade of tan, really – but with a deep taupe, fitted shirt beneath and a matching patterned tie, he looks damn good and he knows it.  “And it’s bespoke Dolce  & Gabbana.  So….”

“Still,” Marshall says, undeterred.  “Close enough.  This is what you dreamed of, buddy!”

Barney opens his mouth to further deflect, but then he glances over at Robin.  When their eyes meet all the fight goes out of him and he just smiles.  “You know what?  It really is.”

At some point in the commotion, Ted and Tracy had followed after Marshall too, apparently there long enough to have heard his explanation, because Tracy asks with amusement, “How about you, Robin?  Was this your dream too?”

“Does that sound like me?  The running in slow motion part?”  Robin smiles slyly at her husband.  “Please.  That’s all him.”

“I don’t know, I seem to recall you once starry-eyed describing your ideal guy to me,” Ted puts in, “and it was pretty much Barney to a tee.”

“Really?” Barney grins.  “When was this?”

“Oh, it had to be a good…”  Ted does a quick calculation.  “….seven or eight years ago.  Not too long before you guys started sleeping together secretly.  Probably around the same time as Marshall’s thing, actually.”

“Aww,” Barney coos in delight to Robin’s embarrassment, “way back in 2009 you said I was your ideal guy?”

All eyes turn to Robin, making her feel even more on the spot.  “I didn’t say you specifically….just smart, funny – ”

“Challenging,” Ted reminds her.

Marshall gasps.  “He says ‘Challenge accepted’ all the time!!”

“Yes, and passionate too,” Robin concedes.  “I’m aware of how very Barney _that_ one is.” 

“And you love it,” Barney contends.  “Now just throw in rapier wit and raffish charm – ”

“I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.” 

He raises his eyebrow knowingly, and she hears his telepathic communication loud and clear:  _You found my charm plenty appealing last night when you jumped me on the couch – and then enjoyed a prime example of just how passionate I can be_. 

“Okay,” Robin admits, “even if it wasn’t intentional, I was totally describing Barney.”

“She was _totally_ talking about Barney!” Marshall repeats with glee.

“Subconsciously,” Robin reiterates.

“I’ll still take it,” Barney says smugly, wrapping his arm around her waist and drawing her in against his side.

“See,” Marshall champions, “it’s stuff like this that makes me believe in Nessie!  The Universe has a plan, miracles are real, and anything is possible!”

Tracy laughs at his childlike wonder, turning to Barney and Robin.  “So it looks like you guys both got your dreams.”

Lily, watching James and Tom dancing with their two kids across the room, laces her fingers through her husband’s.  “I think we all did.”

 

 


End file.
